


Is Was and Shall Be

by lookslikenico, winglesswarrior



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 11:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1897473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookslikenico/pseuds/lookslikenico, https://archiveofourown.org/users/winglesswarrior/pseuds/winglesswarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I hate you?” Derek asked, looking up at Stiles not sure how that was possible. How could he hate this guy? He was sarcastic and a bit smug, but he wasn’t a bad guy. And he smelled so comforting.</p><p>“You… mostly hate me. You also mostly hate everyone so it’s not like I’m all that special.” Stiles squeezed Derek’s shoulder. “It’s complicated. It’s okay.”</p><p>“I don’t know why I’d hate you,” Derek admitted.</p><p>*****</p><p>Derek doesn't know what to think, surrounded by strangers who all know him and who are all telling him that he should be several years older than he is. Several really crappy, awful years older. Where his family is mostly dead, or gone, and where the only person he feels he can trust is a skinny, defenceless human. He has no idea why he feels that Stiles is so important to him, but in the midst of the world feeling like it's falling apart, Stiles is the only solid thing in it.</p><p>*****</p><p>Canon through season 4, episode 1 but then diverges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“So Scott’s an alpha.” Derek said the words with a sideways glance at Scott, who nodded and Derek tried not to shrink back in the face of the alarmingly young alpha’s stare. “She’s a fox.” Derek pointed at Kira, who nodded brightly, as if she was proud of what she was and Scott gave her a goofy sort of grin to go with it, like he was proud of her too. Derek ignored them and looked back at the skinny guy in front of him. “Redhead’s a banshee,” he added, with a tone that that was bordering on ridiculous, which thankfully Lydia seemed to agree with. “You’re human and the coyote’s your girlfriend?”

Stiles was nodding along all pleased like until Derek got to the last one and his face changed, coughing a little. Malia, the coyote, nudged him in the back with her elbow. “I mean, kinda,” Stiles said, not sounding like he was exactly sure and like he didn’t want to offend anyone by giving the wrong answer.

Lydia didn’t seem to have any such qualms. “ _No_ ,” she snapped, glaring with hard eyes as she stared at Stiles. “You are _not_ dating your pet.”

“I’m right here,” Malia said, leaning into Stiles more. “I can hear you.”

“God. Stiles, we talked about this. At length. You’re helping her. You aren’t dating her. I don’t care what she says.” Lydia fixed her look hard on Stiles until he crumbled and shook his head.

“We’re not. We’re, whatever.” Stiles shot Lydia a withering glare, but then turned his focus back on Derek. “And you’re Derek.”

“I’m aware.”

“Right, but you’re not really aware because you think you’re younger Derek and you aren’t really our Derek at the moment. You don’t even look like our Derek. I’m actually kind of surprised that there was a point where you were smaller than me.” Stiles tilted his head to really look at Derek. “And all wide-eyed and innocent-”

“ _Stiles_. Very much not the point.”

Stiles winced at Lydia’s voice then focused back on Derek again. Derek could hear Scott snickering behind him, as if he was trying to hold back a laugh and Derek wasn’t sure why. What on earth was so funny? And why was the human talking when the alpha was in the room?

“The point is, we’re here to help you.”

“No.”

“What? We just pulled you out of an underground tunnel beneath the ruins of a church where you’ve lost like five years of your life and all the years of your life that involve knowing me and you’re just going to go with ‘no’?”

“Why do I know you again?” Stiles (or was it ‘The Stiles’ - Derek wasn’t sure. Either way, it was an odd name) made a noise and Scott reached for his arm to keep him from jumping on Derek. Stiles slumped back, sitting on the dresser in the crappy hotel room, whilst Malia rested her head on his shoulder. He seemed to enjoy that until Lydia cleared her throat at him and he sat up a little straighter.

“Derek, we’re just trying to help,” Scott said.

Derek wasn’t sure what to do with the alpha in front of him. Sure, he was an alpha and everything about Derek wanted to do whatever he said, but Derek has never seen an alpha like this one. He was young and he had nice eyes, not pretty but actually nice, like there was nothing but kindness in him. “I know. Thank you. But I want to go home.”

Something darker flashed in the nice alpha’s eyes and Stiles seemed to choke on nothing. “Scott, he doesn’t know.”

Scott frowned then nodded. “Tomorrow. We’ll stay here tonight, rest up, then head back to Beacon Hills tomorrow.”

The rest of the rag tag team (they weren’t pack, they couldn’t be pack) scattered after that, Lydia forcibly dragging Malia into what she called the ‘girls’ room’ all the while giving Stiles that same dirty look. Stiles dropped on the bed next to Derek, staring at him with his head tilted at a funny angle from where he was laying on the bed. “I knew you looked like that, but I really didn’t believe it. You’re like...young. And a lot less scary.”

Derek made a face, looking at his hands and not the way Stiles was looking at him. Stiles with his quick words and had shoulders that the oversized t-shirt didn’t really hide. Stiles was the kind of guy he never would have gotten to know in high school. The one that he couldn’t keep up with in class but wished he could. Derek wondered if Scott felt that way about him too. “It happens.”

“Not really. It’s weird. Scott, what do you think she did? Like, how do you get someone to age backwards.” Scott gave Stiles a look that said if Stiles didn’t know he wasn’t about to figure it out and Stiles rolled his eyes and reached for his laptop. Derek watched, without wanting to be caught staring, as Stiles booted it up. He seemed impatient - twitching his knees and tapping out a rhythm on the sides of the computer with the pads of incredibly long, nimble fingers. Derek wondered if Stiles knew how the movements drew attention to his hands and his arms.

Derek looked away, knowing he was beginning to stare, but that meant he was looking at the alpha now. He felt trapped, claustrophobic, in this hotel room between an alpha and a human to whom this alpha almost seemed to defer. It was confusing and upsetting and everything felt wrong and alien.

Scott though smiled at him, like everything was alright even if the smile didn’t make it all the way to the alpha’s eyes. There was something else there, like he knew something that he hadn’t said yet. Derek didn’t know what to make of that either, which had him looking at his hands in his lap instead, shoulders rolling forward. He could still hear Stiles’ fingers tapping until the sound changed and he was typing.

“What was that thing called? Whatever you found him behind?” Derek dared to glance over his shoulder where Stiles was hunched over the laptop, the glow of the screen making the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced, like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Erm, I don’t know? Braeden said it was an image of some Aztec god? Jaguar god - Tez something-or-other?” Scott suggested.

“Tezcatlipoca?” Stiles checked, after hitting a few more keys. Derek knew his gaze was bouncing back between the two, concentrating on whichever one was speaking first.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Good, because otherwise we’re shit outta luck on Aztec jaguar gods. Plus, I don’t wanna know if there’s actually more than one. Seriously, dude - the idea of _werejaguars_ is freaky enough.”

“Your girlfriend’s a werecoyote.” Derek cringed back a little as both of the older teenagers looked at him when he spoke.

“A coyote’s not a jaguar,” Stiles pointed out. He dropped his gaze back to the computer and added, “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“And it makes a difference why?” Derek heard himself ask, making a face when Stiles said Malia wasn’t his girlfriend. “If she isn’t what is she? She looks like a girlfriend.”

Scott couldn’t quite hide the snicker at Stiles’ face, which just got worse when Stiles glared at him. “It makes a difference because wolves and coyotes aren’t all that different, whereas jaguars have a fleet of fast cars named after them for a reason,” Stiles explained, voice try as he glared at Scott for a moment longer then turned his attention back to Derek. “And I help her. She doesn’t know the varying levels of human contact yet. So it’s complicated.”

“And you’re desperate for attention because a certain someone won’t give you any,” Scott piped in trying to do his best Lydia voice. Stiles shot him another glare which just resulted in the alpha giggling more, flopped on his back on the bed.

“Who?” How could someone not pay attention to Stiles? Everything about him drew eyes - the way he moved, the way he talked. He was distracting.

“Not. Important. Moving back to Aztec gods.” Stiles said, most of it to Scott, though Derek noticed the hint of a blush tinging his cheeks. There was a terse pause while Scott tried to get himself under control and Stiles continued to glare.

“Wolves and coyotes are nothing alike,” Derek said finally, trying to break the silence.

“Yes they are,” Stiles said, though he sounded more like he was giving Derek an opening to disagree. An opening that Derek took.

“No they’re not. Wolves are stronger, larger. Wolves are pack animals. Coyotes aren’t - coyotes form pairs, not packs. A coyote will look for a mate.” Scott snickered, earning another dark look from Stiles.

“Wolves look for mates too don’t they?” Stiles countered, his eyes still on Scott, who went sullen for a moment as if that was some sort of low blow.

Derek couldn’t stop the blush that seeped into his cheeks at the thought and it got worse when Stiles looked at him in utter shock. “It’s diff...different. For a coyote that mate is it, there’s no room for anyone else. For - for wolves, there’s Pack, and then there’s Mate within that. I… guess. I don’t know, I mean… It’s...” It was really hot in here. Hot and claustrophobic and, “Can I ring my mom? She could come get me and, if you have questions, then she can answer them so much better than I could and she probably knows about the stuff you’re looking into anyhow, or knows someone who will. She has stupid-loads of connections. She’s really respected in the community.” He looked at Scott, then instinctively dropped his gaze from the alpha’s face. “Which you probably knew.”

Scott looked at Stiles, completely at a loss and Stiles shut his laptop setting it aside before scooting closer to Derek. “You know, I’ve never seen you blush before. I didn’t think it was possible.” He had his knees pulled up towards his chest, elbows resting on them, hands not far from Derek which just made him flush more, but this time he covered it with his own hands.

“It’s...possible.” A totally normal reaction, just like how Stiles moving closer didn’t make him feel more claustrophobic, but better.

“Not really. Older you, definitely not possible. Scowl? Glare? Speak completely with your eyebrows? Those are actual Derek emotions. Not pink-cheeked over the idea of having a mate.” Stiles sounded amused, pleased even.

Derek scowled at that, narrowing his eyes and seeming both uncomfortable and angry at what was said. They were making fun of him, he was sure of it, and that wasn’t fair. He had no idea what was going on, or who these guys actually were. They’d completely ignored his request to contact his family and now Stiles and the alpha were laughing at him. He thrust out his jaw in a pout, scrunching in on himself a little more. “There was this girl…” he started, feeling a little thrill of triumph as Stiles shut up right away. Derek watched the older boy’s eyes widen and his face fall and that felt ridiculously great - right up until the moment that Stiles shared a look with the alpha and Derek was suddenly wondering what he was missing.

Stiles pulled his eyes from Scott and nudged Derek with his shoe. “What girl?” he asked, waiting for Derek to go on and explain himself.

Derek suddenly felt uncomfortable. He looked from Stiles to Scott, then back to Stiles. He didn’t want to talk about Kate, even though he was the one who had brought her up. Where was she, anyway? She wasn’t here, nobody had mentioned her, at all. He wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t here. That should probably hurt more than it did, and he didn’t know why it felt like his heart hadn’t been ripped to pieces. Maybe it was a remnant of all of those years he had supposedly lost, which he couldn’t remember. Maybe his heart still remembered what his mind had forgotten. He dropped his eyes again and said, “She’s not still here, is she?” It hardly sounded like a question at all. Last thing he remembered, she was his everything. He would have killed for her. He would have died for her. Now letting her go seemed to be the easiest thing. A relief, even.

There was something in Stiles’ eyes, the way he gnawed at his lip for a moment in a way that Derek almost considered endearing. He looked back towards Scott who shrugged and then powered on, legs dropping so they weren’t in his way as he leaned forward to rest his hand on Derek’s arm. “Not really no. She’s the one that did this to you.”

Confusion rolled across Derek’s face. “What - why?”

“No idea,” Stiles said, his hand still on Derek’s arm. “Though if I had to guess it has something to with you not hating her at this point. God you were this young? No wonder you’re so weird about...” Stiles trailed off and shook his head.

“Weird about what?” Derek asked, leaning forward, closer to Stiles. He had no idea what the other guy was talking about, and that had his main attention. The smell of mint, and spring forests and something more earthy that was Stiles’ scent was almost an after event. It was strangely comforting, feeling like home.

Stiles swallowed, his heart rate changing, but he found a smile. “My age,” he said finally, looking almost sheepish.

Derek’s brow crinkled. “What about your age? Why’s that weird? You’re like what? A year or two older than me? Are you a junior or a senior?” he asked.

“Senior - just,” Stiles answered. “Which isn’t much _now_ , but you’re usually kinda older than this. Than…”

“Than us,” Scott broke in. Derek was confused at the grateful look Stiles shot his way.

“Right. Us. So you know, you tend to remind me... us of that a lot. Like it’s some big divide.”

Derek tilted his head to look at Stiles, really look at him. “I don’t know why I’d do that.” Stiles seemed comforting, like someone he wanted around.

Now it seemed to be Stiles’ turn to blush and he pulled away, burying himself back in his laptop. “Well you do. Who knows why - you’re not the easiest read, dude.”

“No?” Derek asked Stiles, but it was Scott that answered.

“No, not really. Come on, get some rest,” he said nodded towards the spare side of bed Derek was on with Stiles. “He’ll go like that for most of the night. Might as well just let him.”

Derek looked toward Stiles, worried, but he didn’t even spare Derek a glance, hunched as he was over the computer. Derek looked back at the alpha with the kind eyes. Scott nodded and gestured toward the bed and that was all Derek needed. Scott might not be his alpha, but he was an alpha and some of the weight lifted when Derek allowed himself to simply follow orders. Shucking out of his jeans, Derek crawled beneath the covers, laying on his side, facing Stiles.

After a long moment, Stiles looked at him, something softer than before, wistful almost, before he went back to his work again. Derek watched him for a little while longer before his eyes fell shut and sleep took over.

\-----

Sunlight was filtering through a gap in the plain, brown curtains when Derek awoke to the sound of soft, snuffly snores on the bed next to him. He cracked an eye open - and then promptly thrust himself away so fast that he almost fell out of the other side of the bed.

Eyes wide, he looked up at the way Stiles had fallen asleep, propped up against the pillows, the laptop still on his knees. Stiles’ head had rolled back and his face was pointed toward the ceiling, mouth open as he quietly snored. That neat, upturned nose twitched every so often. Derek tilted his head a little, examining the other boy’s features. The pale skin, sharp cheekbones. That little line of moles across his cheek. He ran his eyes down, taking in the long line of his arms, the way that one had dropped down to his side - the side that Derek has woken up to find himself cuddling against.

Shit.

Derek’s movements must have roused Scott, because a sleepy “Stiles”, murmur came from the other bed, which was enough to wake Stiles. He woke with a flail of arms and legs and Derek just barely managed to catch his laptop before it landed on the floor. The action required reaching over Stiles, putting him right at eye level with the other boy and his sweet sleepy smile. “Thanks Der,” Stiles mumbled, voice thick with sleep and the whole thing made Derek’s insides clench. He didn’t like this guy? Why?

Derek placed the laptop down on the bed between them, scooting back and thinking that adult him must be a complete and utter moron. “Did you find anything?” he asked Stiles, who shook his head as he rubbed his eyes and stretched out a crick in his neck.

“Nothing useful,” Stiles said with a yawn. “Lots of legends, slowing down aging and things like that, but not taking it backwards. Even most of the Fountain of Youth lore doesn’t age you backwards.” He reached out and patted Derek’s head, looking completely thrilled about it. “I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”

Derek instinctively leaned into the touch a little, then looked between Scott and Stiles, something occurring to him. Stiles had to be the emissary to the alpha’s pack. That was the only answer for the weird relationship between the two, and why the alpha took direction from the human. Derek smiled to himself at that, comforted by his conclusion and feeling a little smug with the fact that he’d worked it out on his own. His mother had never talked about her emissary, so Scott probably didn’t feel comfortable discussing Stiles’ position with Derek.

Stiles had a surprised look on his face though, watching his hand like something weird had happened, at least until someone pounded on the door. Sighing, Stiles pulled his hand back to his own face, rubbing it before opening the door and winding up with an armful of Malia. “Did you sleep?” the coyote was asking before letting Stiles out of her choke hold.

“Yes, he did - some,” Scott answered for Stiles as Derek got up off the bed and headed toward the bathroom. He glanced at Stiles and Malia, only to see Malia drop her head to Stiles’ chest again, inhale, and then turn to look at Derek. Her eyes narrowed and the corner of her mouth drew upward in a silent snarl, only visible to Derek, due to the angle she was standing. He froze, then turned to her. He wasn’t going to be intimidated by a _coyote_. Dropping his chin a little, he stared her down, feet planted shoulder-width apart. It wasn’t an aggressive stance, but it was a clear one: he was here, he wasn’t going anywhere. If she had a problem being able to smell his scent on Stiles this morning, then that was her problem. The motel rooms were small, there was a limited number of beds, the alpha hadn’t had an issue with the situation and, most importantly, Stiles himself had said that he and Malia weren’t together. She had no claim, no matter what she seemed to think.

“We should get going,” Lydia said, pulling at Stiles’ arm to get Malia away from him and nodding towards his bag. “We need to get him looked at.” She nodded towards Derek who broke off his stare down with Malia to nod.

Malia managed to keep hold of Stiles’ hand and seemed like she wasn’t actually going to let go - right up until Stiles actually physically pulled his hand away. “I need to shower,” he said and for a moment Derek swore that Malia looked like she was quite happy to follow Stiles into the bathroom. Lydia gave a loud groan and yanked Malia out of the room, slamming the door behind them.

Derek looked back at Stiles who’d pinked around his cheeks some, watching the door like something might change. “Go on,” Derek finally said, pushing at Stiles’ side. Stiles stared at him, like he didn’t know what to make of Derek then shook his head and went into the bathroom.

Derek turned back to Scott. “So, erm...”

“Malia spent like ten years stuck as a full coyote before she managed to get back her human form,” Scott explained, and Derek was grateful the alpha had anticipated his question.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So...”

“Stiles has been helping her. Working with her on her humanity.”

“Has anyone - did anyone warn him? About...”

Scott looked confused. “About what?” he asked, making Derek just stare at the utter cluelessness in his expression.

“About the fact that coyotes look for a mate! That’s... That’s - did you not see that? This? The - the way she acts around him? That’s what he is, to her! And if he doesn’t want that, or he doesn’t _know_ that’s what she’s doing! Then that’s not only really shitty for him to have to deal with, but grossly unfair to her! She’s working with her instincts! She doesn’t know that it works differently to humans!”

Scott still looked bewildered and Derek wondered if he shouldn’t have snapped at the alpha like he did. Instantly he wanted to take it back but Scott seemed to process what he said and made a pained face. “Huh. I didn’t know about that. You usually tell me about that kind of stuff.”

Derek looked at Scott like he’d just grown another head. “I usually tell you things? Me? Why are you listening to me? You’re an alpha! I’m a beta! Don’t you worry that it’ll undermine you, waiting for the beta to have the answers?”

Scott tilted his head back and forth like he didn’t have an answer or didn’t know what the right answer was. “You were an alpha,” Stiles answered for him, from the doorway of the bathroom - fresh from the shower. Derek spun, staring at the human now, trying not to get caught up in the scent of warm water tinged with Stiles.

“I was a what?” Not Derek. Derek wasn’t meant to be an alpha. He was a middle child. Not even close.

“An alpha. Plus you’re born. He’s bitten. You’ve always known more than Scott and sometimes you were willing to share it.”

“More lately,” Scott offered. “He was giving more, while you were...”

“Right. I missed that. But yeah, you help. You’ve always helped.”

“How was I an alpha?” Derek asked, latching into that fact. “I was never going to be and alpha. Mom was the alpha. Laura was being trained to take over from her. I... I’m a beta. I’m not an alpha. I don’t know how to be an alpha!”

Stiles snorted as he crossed the room and started pulling clothes on, keeping the towel wrapped firmly around his waist. “Don’t panic, you weren’t all that good at it.”

“What?” Derek asked, trying hard to both glare at Stiles which half turned into a stare because it really wasn’t the right conversation to be having while Stiles wasn’t really dressed. Or that Stiles should be dressed for the conversation. That was it.

“You sucked at it. Terrible really.”

“Stiles...” Scott drew his friend’s name out as if suggesting he should be gentler.

Stiles huffed out a sigh and looked at Scott who shrugged, then tossed away his towel after he’d pulled his jeans on under it. “A bad set of circumstances led you to be alpha. You weren’t the greatest, because like you said, you weren’t trained for it.”

“But... I’m not an alpha now?” Derek asked. Confused - he thought he’d feel different if he were an alpha - he looked in the mirror and flashed his eyes. Blue. Beta. Beta who killed Paige. He looked away, squeezing his eyes closed. He hated his reflection. His eyes. Remembering.

Derek didn’t have to open his eyes to know it was Stiles who had his hand on his shoulder. The scent was there, mixed in with the water from his shower and whatever soap he’d used but still powerfully Stiles. “You gave it up or something. I didn’t get details.”

Derek looked over at Scott. “To you?” he asked. If he was bad at it, maybe it was for the best, though he still didn’t understand how he’d become an alpha in the first place.

“No, Scott’s a true alpha,” Stiles explained.

“Then why? How? He’s a true alpha?” Derek was getting more confused by the moment feeling like there was a big piece missing from what they were saying.

“Cora,” Stiles said. “You gave it up for your sister. She was hurt, and you gave it up and she got better. I have no idea how that works because that’s all I know. You aren’t exactly full of sharing and rainbows.”

That, at least, made sense. Giving up something he was never meant to have to save someone he loved. That made perfect sense. Derek doubted he’d even had to stop and think about that one at all. “When can we go back to Beacon Hills?” he asked, looking impatient at the other two had a silent conversation. Derek rolled his eyes and huffed at the significant looks going between the other two. Scott, it seemed won.

“Today - Lydia and I both think that you need to be looked at by Deaton.”

Derek focused in on Stiles, who was not looking happy. “What do you think?” he asked.

“Me?” Stiles asked, seemingly surprised that Derek was actually asking for his opinion. “I...” Scott glared at him and Stiles scowled back. “He _asked_ \- it doesn’t make a difference, we’re going home anyway! You win this one.” Derek waited, his expression the picture of annoyed impatience. “I think we should stay here,” Stiles explained. “Closer to there we found you. In case we need that to reverse whatever happened.”

“But we’re going home,” Scott jumped in, before Derek could say a word. “Because Stiles hasn’t found anything and Deaton will know more.”

“Who’s Deaton?” Derek asked.

There was another significant look between Scott and Stiles. Stiles gave Scott a warning scowl and a shrug - odd combination in Derek’s opinion, but ‘odd’ seemed to work well on Stiles somehow. “Alan Deaton - he’s a vet in Beacon Hills - and he’s my emissary,” Scott explained.

“Wait, but...” Derek spluttered.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“I thought you...”

“Me? What? No. No way. That’s all Deaton and his speaking in riddles.”

“Then...” Derek pointed between Stiles and Scott.

“What?” Scott asked.

“You’re an alpha.”

“So.”

Derek judges in frustration in having to actually explain the obvious. “You defer to him. In public. You ask him. Expect things of him. He argues with you!”

“Stiles argues with everybody,” Scott protested.

“True,” Stiles agreed, without remorse.

“He shouldn’t with an alpha!” Derek insisted looking completely baffled. “Why do you keep him around if he just ignores your status?”

“He’s human. It doesn’t mean anything to him. Plus he’s Stiles. He’s smarter than almost anyone else. He’s saved my life tons of times. He’s saved your life.”

“Of course we save each other’s lives, we’re pack!” Derek exclaimed. His brain came to a blinding halt. He mouthed the words again, to himself. They _felt_ right. The declaration felt warm and cosy - his inner wolf was comfortable with it. All of his instincts sang with the knowledge. Yet - these two strangers couldn’t be pack. He had a pack. His _family_ were his pack. Yet - Scott wasn’t just an alpha. Scott was _his_ alpha. He tried out the thought. His memories screamed out that it was wrong - whilst his instincts called out in confirmation.

Derek took two steps back and sunk down onto the bed, distraught. “Where’s my family?” he asked, his tone empty. He looked up - at Stiles, not Scott. Another thing that his brain said was wrong, but he instinctively did anyway. “What happened to my family?”

Stiles hesitated, as if he could see the way Scott was giving him a warning look without looking at Scott. After a moment he let out a sigh and moved closer to Derek, crouching slightly so he was the one looking up and not Derek. “There was a fire.”

“Stiles-” Scott started but the human waved him off.

“I’m not going to lie to him Scott. We can’t. We don’t know how permanent this is.” Stiles looked back at Derek and the sadness in his eyes made Derek’s insides sink to the floor with dread. “There was a fire. It wasn’t your fault, but...most of them died.”

The bottom dropped out of Derek’s world. Stiles carried on talking, but Derek didn’t hear a word of it. Stiles was looking up at him, but he went all blurry and Derek realised he was crying. Then someone was holding him, tightly, and he was clinging back before he realised that was Stiles too. Derek buried his face in his shoulder, breathing in the scent of calm and home and regret as Derek clutched at his back like Stiles was the only thing keeping him in this world.

“You’re okay,” Stiles was murmuring over and over, softly against his head. Derek mostly just heard the tones of his voice rather than the words. He didn’t actually register words until Scott spoke.

“We should go.” The alpha sounded hesitant, as if he didn’t want to interrupt something even if he felt like he had to. Stiles nodded against Derek’s head before pulling back and Derek tried not to feel ashamed that his hand stayed fisted in Stiles’ shirt.

Derek heard Stiles ask Scott to drive in a way that included death threats if Scott got even the slightest dent in Stiles’ jeep. Derek had seen that jeep - one more dent really wasn’t going to matter. But then again, nothing mattered. His family was dead. _Killed in a fire_.

Derek didn’t resist as Stiles helped him to his feet and out to the car. Derek didn’t let go of Stiles at all, which made getting into the back of the jeep difficult. He didn’t care - he couldn’t face the world right now.

He could hear Malia, her protests, but somehow he wound up in the back, one side pressed against the door, the other against Stiles and Malia far enough away to not matter. Stiles was explaining something, but Derek didn’t care. He focused on the pressure of Stiles’ body against his and not throwing up. That seemed like the best plan.


	2. Chapter 2

At some point, he must have fallen asleep, because the sun was on the other side of the car when he woke. Lydia was driving now, Scott by her side, curled up and asleep in the passenger seat. Stiles hadn’t moved, still between Derek and the other girls, one arm around Derek’s shoulder and his body tilted towards him, as though Stiles could protect Derek from everything. Derek felt small - tiny and cocooned, though not in a bad way.

“Hey,” Stiles murmured, his eyes fluttering open as Derek moved, betraying the fact he hadn’t really been asleep.

“Hey,” Derek whispered. “Where are we?” He looked out of the window, at the endless miles of scrub.

“Back roads,” Stiles explained. “Or, well, less ‘roads’ as ‘vague tracks’. We have to get back into the States somehow and you don’t exactly have believable ID right now.”

“So you’re _smuggling me_?” Derek asked him.

“You have any other bright ideas?” Lydia glanced back over her shoulder, looking from him to Stiles. She turned back to concentrate on driving. “Because I’ve already told him that this is the dumbest plan yet - and it got worse since he’s refusing to actually drive this pile of shit he calls a car.”

“Hey! Leave the Jeep out of this one!” Stiles protested. “I’d love to see your car deal with this terrain,” he added, more to himself than to Lydia.

“I’m just not sure why we picked the car with the least amount of space to travel in,” Malia grumbled, but Lydia shot her a look in the rearview mirror.

“Everyone stop hating on the Jeep. This car has saved lives. My life. Your lives. Shush everyone of you.” Stiles pouted a little and Derek had to fight a smile at that. “And my plans. They work out in the end.”

“Except sometimes people get electrocuted in the middle of them,” Scott mumbled from where he wasn’t really asleep in the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry about that,” Stiles said, leaning forward a little to touch Scott’s arm. “Really. You know that right? I did not see that coming.”

“I know,” Scott said. “I didn’t either.”

“Worst. Plan. Ever,” Lydia sing-songed from the driver’s seat.

“It wasn’t really all that bad. It’s working out, isn’t it?” Kira asked, quietly, from the other side of the car.

 _My family’s dead,_ Derek thought to himself. _Nothing’s working out at all._ As if he’d said that out loud, Stiles’ arm tightened around him. Derek dropped his head onto Stiles’ shoulder. How was this guy not a wolf? He had far better instincts than the alpha did. Either that, or Stiles knew him a whole lot better than anyone was willing to admit to.

“It’s not that much farther,” Stiles said. Derek nodded against his shoulder because he didn’t want Stiles to think that he wasn’t listening.

“It’s far enough,” Lydia said, but she was watching where they were going. “The border’s up there. Hold your breath.”

“That’s not going to help,” Malia pointed out to the group.

“It’s a turn of phrase,” Kira supplied.

“Just hope they don’t stop us. Or else we’re just gonna have to rely on Derek here to be the most American of all American guys and hope they buy that he lost his ID in Mexico and don’t try and call…”

“Shut up, Lydia,” Stiles ground out.

“Fine. Shutting up,” Lydia said, and while it was just a turn of phrase everyone did hold their breath as they crossed the upcoming border and Stiles’ fingers dug a little harder into Derek’s shoulder. No one said a word until they were a few minutes past it, until the overall sigh seemed to take over the car.

“Told you it would work Lydia,” Stiles said, nudging her elbow with his free hand.

“Just this once doesn’t make all your ideas good ones Stiles.”

“But just this once means this is a good one,” Stiles pointed out. “That’s what matters. The rest will come, little one.”

“Oh please, don’t try that whole guru thing on me, Stiles. It won’t work - I remember when you peed your pants in the kindergarten sand pit,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes.

“Which, _really_ isn’t something anyone else needed to share!” Stiles exclaimed.

“I already knew,” Scott said, chuckling a little.

“And I call you two my best friends,” Stiles grumbled.

“You don’t need them,” Malia said, from somewhere on the other side of Stiles. Derek felt Stiles tense for a moment and then relax. He had no idea what that actually meant.

“Yes he does,” Lydia answered, her eyes looking for Stiles in the rearview mirror, but Stiles didn’t look up at her.

“Complications of friendship,” Stiles said, as if he’d already explained it to Malia.

“Like your friendship with Derek?” Malia asked, and Stiles tensed again.

“That’s really complicated.”

“How? Because you dragged us to Mexico to find him?”

“Scott wanted to go too,” Stiles pointed out.

“It was your idea,” Scott answered with a yawn, until he seemed to realise that Derek was staring at him. Then the alpha shifted in his seat. “The rest of us wanted to come too. You’re… important to the pack,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. “It’s just… Stiles put together the plan.”

“Which wasn’t a good plan,” Lydia pointed out.

“Shut up Lydia.” Stiles poked her in the arm.

“But yeah, why did you have to go get him? He doesn’t even like you that much. That’s what you said. He hates you,” Malia insisted.

“I hate you?” Derek asked, looking up at Stiles not sure how that was possible. How could he hate this guy? He was sarcastic and a bit smug, but he wasn’t a bad guy. And he smelled so comforting.

“You… mostly hate me. You also mostly hate everyone so it’s not like I’m all that special.” Stiles squeezed Derek’s shoulder. “It’s complicated. It’s okay.”

“I don’t know why I’d hate you,” Derek admitted.

“Oh my god!” Lydia proclaimed from the front, making both Derek and Stiles jump. She pulled the Jeep to a stop and wrenched open the door, jumping out. “This has to stop! Seriously! I’m not driving all the way back with that!”

Everyone else climbed out, though Derek didn’t leave the side of the Jeep. It was the first time he’d let go of Stiles since they’d left the motel, and he felt more empty than he could ever recall.

“What’s the problem, Lydia?” Stiles asked.

“You! You’re the problem! You with your… harem of creatures! Is this some kind of… collection thing? Are you exuding some kind of scent or something? Because - this never used to happen, Stiles!”

Malia’s moved closer, shaking her head. “He’s just Stiles. He’s…”

“Hush Malia. You don’t get it. And Derek you’re...tiny you wouldn’t get it. Scott?” Lydia looked pleadingly at the alpha who shrugged.

“He smells the same as he always has. I have no idea why Malia is, well minus the part where she’s a coyote and they look for mates and Stiles was _there_ when she needed him, but Derek I don’t… Maybe they would have gotten along if…” Scott trails off realizing he stepped in something they hadn’t explained to Derek yet.

“If what?” Derek demanded, not liking the way his voice broke slightly.

“If nothing. If we were the same age. If your family hadn’t died. All of it.” Stiles said. “It’s fine Lydia. I’m not Malia’s… mate. And Derek and I… He’ll be normal again soon and he’ll hate me more if he remembers any of this so no one panic. Everything is fine. Soon enough we’ll go back to Stiles being alone.”

“You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone,” Malia said decisively. Derek just looked pointedly at both Scott and Stiles, ignoring his own confusion about why apparently he and Stiles didn’t get along for the more pressing issue of the fact that they were letting this poor coyote live an illusion.

“Malia,” Stiles said as he caught Derek’s look then reached for the keys from Lydia. “Look I’ll drive. I’m fine. And we’re not… Malia we’re not. We talked about this.”

Derek looked at Scott who just shrugged. “Can I sit up front?” he asked instead going to that seat. Ignoring the way Malia’s hackles went up as a result. “I’m feeling a little queasy.”

“A werewolf with motion sickness?” Stiles asked as he climbed in behind the steering wheel.

“It could happen.” Derek did his best to sound serious about it, like it was completely legitimate.

“I want to sit up front too,” Malia said glaring daggers at Derek.

“There isn’t room, Malia,” Stiles explained, patiently, nodding to Derek to climb up beside him.

“There’s no room in the back either” the coyote pointed out. Still, she did as she was told and - sulkily - climbed into the back with the others.

The others piled in after them and Stiles got them on the road again, focused on that and not Derek, despite the fact that Derek was watching him. Derek couldn’t stop watching him. It was strange, the way it was normal for Stiles to be alone, like he said. Why was that? Stiles shouldn’t have to be alone.

Stiles glanced across at him, eventually. Once the others were settled in the back and they’d been driving for a while. He looked like he was choosing carefully what to say, and Derek figured that he was trying to pick a topic that wasn’t too upsetting. He was grateful for that. He wanted to know what had happened to his family, but he didn’t think he could take any more - not right now. “Things got complicated,” Stiles said, eventually. “Scott was newly turned and we ended up working together. Nothing ever really got planned. Two years down the line and we’re still trying to work things out. Most of it we couldn’t have done without you.”

Derek listened quietly, watching Stiles as he spoke. “What kind of complicated?”

Stiles looked pained, like he didn’t know how to word what came next. “We weren’t always on the same side. You and I… we look at things differently. And sometimes neither one of us is right, but we both suck at admitting that.”

Stiles chewed on his thumb again as he thought, like he was going through memories, reliving them just to give Derek more information. “We weren’t friends, but we needed each other. And then… I don’t know. It got better I guess.”

“I can trust you.” Derek didn’t question it. With what Stiles had to say, he didn’t know how it happened. He had no idea why it happened. He just knew that it did. He trusted Stiles. Maybe more than the alpha - and he didn’t even know that was possible. He’d never experienced that before. Now, however, he wasn’t at all sure that he’d follow Scott over Stiles.

Stiles opened his mouth then closed it before nodding. “Yeah I guess you can. There’s been times when…”

“When what?”

“When I’ve put you over the others. When I was worried about you.” Stiles sounded distant, as if he was lost in his own mind and the memories of those moments. 

“What - really?” Scott’s voice from the back interrupted whatever moment there might have been, and Stiles swerved a little, clearly as thrown by the interruption as Derek was.

Stiles straightened the jeep up and glared at Scott in the rearview mirror. “Yes, Scott,” he deadpanned, not giving anything away. Derek thought he looked entirely unimpressed by Scott’s questioning of things.

“Derek could look after himself,” Scott said, in what was quite clearly meant to be a significant tone.

Stiles met his eyes for a moment, then sighed.

“Derek does a terrible job of taking care of himself,” Stiles murmured under his breath even though Derek had a feeling he knew that Scott and himself could still hear him. “I know he can,” Stiles said louder. “But after saving his life a couple of times I feel responsible. Morally obligated.”

Derek looked up at Stiles at that, his mouth open, forehead creased, hurt written all over his features and he didn’t even try to hide it. He tried to push away from Stiles, even a little, but they were in a car and there was nowhere to go. It ended up more of a squirm accompanied by a little whine.

“You okay?” Stiles asked and Derek hated the way that he looked, like he was honestly concerned and worried and not just _morally obligated_.

“I don’t need you to look after me or feel responsible,” Derek just barely managed on the edge of a scowl.

Stiles frowned slightly, then shook his head. “That sounds more like you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you suck at asking for help.”

“Then why do you keep trying?” Derek’s voice got louder than he meant it to, more insistent.

Stiles fingers flexed on the steering wheel and his jaw went tight. Derek was sure he was gearing up to say something cruel from the death stare he was leveling on the road in front of them, but he didn’t say anything, not for a long while. Stiles didn’t speak until his shoulders let go of the tension and though his hands were still gripping the steering wheel, it looked more like he was clinging to it, like it was some sort of anchor. “Because I’m an idiot.”

Derek glanced at the people in the back, none of whom were pretending they weren’t interested in the conversation. It wasn’t like there was anything else to be interested in. Derek sighed and looked back at Stiles. “You’re not an idiot.” He fell quiet for a long moment, before adding, “I don’t want your help just because you feel you _have_ to.”

Stiles didn’t answer for a long while again and eventually Lydia leaned forward and spoke for him, tone impatient like it had been outside the Jeep when she pulled them over. “He wants to. He always has. Don’t worry about it.” Stiles’ eyes met hers in the rearview mirror as she sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. Scott looked upset at Stiles, but Stiles just shrugged and went back to staring at the road.

The words ‘moral obligation’ still echoed around in Derek’s head, but he said nothing about it. Instead, he turned to look out of the window as they finally reached actual roadway once again and turned due north.

\-----

“We can’t just send him to the loft. There’s nothing there. And he lives like a Spartan now. The guy is used to a home with a family and at the loft he’ll really lose his mind.” Stiles was trying to keep his voice down, but Derek could still hear him talking to his father in the other room while he sat on the couch and waited.

“You’re sure that’s him?” the Sheriff asked sounding skeptical. “How does that even happen? Time travel?”

“No, Dad, not time travel. This isn’t an episode of Doctor Who. It’s just...I don’t know. Some weird Aztec thing? I’m still trying to figure it out. All I know is that this Derek is not the one you’ve met, and he’s scared and upset and he should stay here.” Stiles sounded sure and Derek felt that twinge of confusion about him again. Just like in the car, he wasn’t sure what had happened between his older self and Stiles that their relationship was so complicated.

“I wasn’t going to send him home. I’m just confused.” The Sheriff sounded tired actually. “You’re still in trouble for lying,” he added. “But go get him settled and I’ll order something for us to eat.”

A moment later Stiles ducked his head into the living room, smiling a little at Derek. “Come on, I’ll show you the guest room.”

“I live alone?” Derek asked, the question feeling weird to say. “What about Cora? You mentioned Cora?” Not all of his family was... dead. _Fire. They died in a fire_.

“Cora’s not in town right now,” Stiles told him. “There was some trouble a while back and you sent her away. After she was hurt.” He paused, halfway up the stairs, and Derek could tell by looking at him that Stiles was wondering whether to say something else on his mind. “Peter’s in town.”

“He is?” Derek knew he sounded hopeful, but Stiles’ shoulders tensed.

“Yeah he is.” Stiles didn’t sound like he liked Peter. Which might make sense, Peter was abrasive when he wanted to be, but Stiles seemed like Peter, or the Peter from his memories. Maybe not as blunt, but as sharp, as quick witted.

“But I don’t stay with him?”

“Peter marches to his own drum. He’s sometimes at the loft sometimes not. Honestly I have no idea.” Stiles didn’t have to say _and I don’t care_ with it; Derek could hear it in his voice.

Once at the top of the stairs, Stiles was pointing towards the spare room. “You had others living with you, but things changed. Lately you’ve been on your own.”

Derek was silent as he walked into the spare room. It was standard fare, he supposed. Neat, clean - an old patchwork quilt on the bed, plain, uninspiring nightstand. The air smelled faintly dusty - evidence that the room didn’t get used a whole lot. It felt lonely. It felt the way Derek felt right now as he sat down on the bed and looked at his hands. He could sense Stiles standing in the doorway and he looked up. “I don’t want to be him.”

“What? Who?” Stiles asked, leaning forward and hanging into the room, yet not letting go of the door frame.

“Me. Or - the guy that you know. Older me.”

Derek could hear Stiles swallow hard, fingers tapping at the door frame. “Don’t say that.”

Derek shook his head. “None of you… you don’t like him. Only you and you have this sound in your voice when you talk about him.”

“A sound?” Stiles asked, warily.

“Yeah - a sound. Like… Like he hurt you somehow, but you don’t want anyone to know, even though with the amount of significant looks everyone makes, they all clearly do anyway by the way. But yeah, like he hurt you, but you’re determined to be there anyway.”

Stiles let a out a breath with a puff then shifted so he was leaning in the doorway, shoulder against the frame. “It’s not like that, he didn’t...you didn’t…” He stopped then ran his hand over his face before starting again. “He didn’t hurt me. He just doesn’t do feelings. He’s a little cut off. A lot cut off. So I never know where I stand.” 

“He trusts you,” Derek told Stiles. It was easier, referring to his older self as ‘he’, rather than ‘I’. ‘I’ felt weird.

“No - you trust me,” Stiles countered. 

“I do - because he trusts you. Because it’s instinct.”

“You can’t say that,” Stiles argued, to which Derek arched a brow.

“Yes. I can. You don’t get it. Instinct isn’t keyed to memory. It comes from another place. I have instincts as a werewolf that you don’t - _can’t_ \- have. To say I trust you, it feels right. Like home and comfort and security.” He took a breath in through his nose and ploughed onward. “ _You_ are like home and comfort and security. Not Scott. Not my alpha. You.”

Stiles frowned and he moved closer, but didn’t seem to realize it. “Me? I… Why would I?” he asked. “I mean Scott’s not really your… You two work together but it’s not an alpha and beta thing. It different - you were an alpha and he’s just finding his way. The dynamic’s different, but me? Why?” He looked like he was trying to figure it out, going through moments and memories to determine where the trust came from. 

“Maybe because you saved his life. Maybe he knows how you feel about him,” Derek suggested. 

“I never said,” Stiles started but the argument was distant, as if he wasn’t really paying attention, still lost in his own head, arms crossed with one hand rubbing at his chin. 

“Am I… Is he… really just a moral obligation?” Derek asked. “You like him, don’t you? You organised your friends to drive over a thousand miles, to another country, to face down a family of hunters, to pay them a substantial sum of money - which I’m really hoping you’re going to tell me Peter gave you, by the way - and then came to an abandoned city to find me. That’s… That doesn’t feel like a moral obligation to me.” Or, possibly, Derek was just hoping that it wasn’t.

Stiles looked caught in something, shifting his stance to cross his arms over his chest completely. Guarded. Derek remembered his mother explaining that stance. “He’s not just a moral obligation. I had to say something to get Scott off my back.” 

“Scott can tell if you’re lying.” 

“Yeah, but usually Scott lets me have the lie.” Stiles wouldn’t look at him, looking at his feet instead. “How I feel about him isn’t really important. It’s never been. It just is.” Stiles looked a little hurt, like it was something that ate at him but he didn’t let it show.

Derek cocked his head to the side. “Bullshit,” he said, bluntly. He rolled his eyes and stood, shaking his head. “It’s clearly important to you. That should make it important to him. Even if, for some reason, he doesn’t feel the same way. You’re pack. He trusts you more than the alpha. You’re important.” 

Stiles let out a sigh, guarded posture crumbling as he rubbed at his face. “I almost got him killed. Just a few weeks ago. With a shrapnel bomb. Because when I was possessed he was the one I was sure would figure it out and save me. And what took me over tried to take him out of the picture.” Stiles looked at his hands. “By the time I was me again he was...you were gone. I haven’t had a chance to apologize yet.” 

Derek knew Stiles wasn’t really talking about what he’d said, but he didn’t interrupt him. 

“It is important to me. But I don’t think I’m important to him.” 

“Then I’m an idiot,” Derek told him. He wanted to know the whole story behind possession and potential death-by-shrapnel-bomb, but now didn’t seem like the time to ask. In fact, Derek figured that Stiles had actually only laid that story out there as a distraction, so Derek _would_ ask, and Stiles could stop talking about how he felt about Derek. Older Derek. Not him-Derek. Emotionally stunted, lonely, closed in Derek who had no family and whose life appeared to be a total fucking mess. The Derek he would inevitably become. The Derek he really was.

Life fucking sucked.

Stiles laughed at that though, shaking his head. “You are an idiot,” he agreed with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, but his hands were on Derek’s shoulders. “But not for that. Just a host of other things.” 

Derek looked up, meeting Stiles’ eyes. He wondered if he was taller than Stiles. Broader, maybe. Wondered how often they touched. Wondered what the hell his self was thinking, not caring for this wonderful creature in front of him. How he could be so blind. There was a moment, and then Derek surged forward, kissing Stiles without giving him a moment to second-guess the decision to do so.

Stiles tensed under the kiss, Derek could feel that. Derek didn’t want him to - he wanted Stiles to react the way he had suggested he felt, but he didn’t and whilst his hand twisted in Derek’s shirt he only barely answered the kiss. It was enough for Derek to pull back, ducking his head. “Sorry, I…” 

“No! No it’s fine. I just…” Stiles wiped at the corner of his mouth, then gnawed on his lip. “I’m going to get you a towel and maybe a clean shirt. And…dinner will be soon.” He winced at his own words, then took a few steps back towards the door, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “It’s fine. It really is. I’m sorry. I should… go.” 

Derek stood, alone, in the middle of the room and watched Stiles go. He shouldn’t have done that. He knew it. He’d screwed everything up and now the guy who just _felt_ like the best thing in his fucked up life was leaving.


	3. Chapter 3

“Where do you get off, treating him like that?” 

Derek jumped at the voice that was definitely not Deaton’s or Scott’s or Stiles’. They’d dropped him off at the clinic, let the kind veterinarian look at him, walk around him in a circle and come up with nothing. The man had gone off to look some things up and gave Derek the bin of food to fill up bowls for the animals in the back. He’d felt a little silly, but the animals were nice enough to the person who was feeding them breakfast so it was actually kind of nice. At least until someone was yelling at him. 

He spun, amazed that she smelled like cinnamon sorta. It was almost too obvious. The redhead smelled like cinnamon. “Treat...who?” he asked. 

“Stiles. Just hauling off and doing that? Don’t you understand how twisted up he’s been over you? For _years_?” Derek looked at her, baffled, but Lydia was having none of it as she stalked over to him, no fear smell from her at all, and poked him in the chest with one perfectly manicured finger. “Don’t look like that with me! That whole… wide eyed innocence routine. I perfected that whole act and I can see right through it. He _told me what you did_.”

“What I…”

“You kissed him, you pint sized, gigantic jerk!”

Oh. That. Derek ducked his head and forced himself not to back up a step from her as much as he wanted to. She was kind of terrifying. “I just… He likes me. Him. But I don’t, he doesn’t, and he’s wrong.” It was complicated and confusing talking about himself currently and the older version of himself. 

“He’s wrong?” Lydia asked, raising her eyebrow. 

“He is. He doesn’t know, I mean he does, because I’m still partially him instinct-wise and… Why doesn’t he?” 

Lydia cocked her head to the side and pressed her nail harder into his chest. “Try harder to actually make the words make sense,” she instructed with a tight smile that was more frightening than being faced down by a rogue alpha. 

“Stiles likes Derek,” Derek said, with a squeak that he was not proud of. “Older Derek. It’s obvious. And I don’t get why older Derek thinks he doesn’t like Stiles. He has to because Stiles is… Stiles. He…” Derek’s eyes unfocused for a moment as all of his senses reached out. “He’s _right_. He smells right, he feels right. Everything he does and says and is and I don’t understand why I - older me - is apparently so sense-dulled and stupid.”

That was enough to get Lydia to back down a little bit, get her to roll back and stare at him, arms crossed. It wasn’t defensive when she did it like it was when Stiles did. It was intimidating. Everything about her was intimidating. “Older you’s been through a lot of crap. It doesn’t justify it, but it’s why. And he probably thinks Stiles is too young.” She narrowed her eyes at him, staring him down. “How do you feel about him, right now?” 

“Like I’d drive a thousand miles and risk everything to rescue him from a creepy church?” Derek suggested. “Stiles is… important. More than just pack. Or maybe not ‘more’ maybe ‘center’ would be a better word. It’s hard - my brain is telling me different things than my instincts. My brain says I’ve only just met him, that I don’t know him at all. My instincts tell me I know him better than anyone else in the world.”

Lydia stared at him hard for a moment longer then her entire demeanor changed, smile where there’d been a scowl, shoulders lighter and free of tension. “You probably do. He’s the one that knows you best. So I say do something about it. Go for it.” 

That was more terrifying that anything that went before, Derek decided. He’d face anything, rather than have Lydia Martin change attitude so abruptly on him. “Go for it?” he asked, cautiously.

“Go for it,” she confirmed with a nod and another wide smile. One which she maintained as she added, “And if you hurt him, I will personally remove your balls with my nails and feed them to you, one by one. I know you can heal, but I’m willing to bet that you won’t be able to regrow body parts.”

Derek felt his skin go cold. She was terrifying. Nothing, not a thing in the world was as terrifying as Lydia Martin. “Right. I wouldn’t ever. I wouldn’t dare. I couldn’t.” He chewed on his lip then looked back at her. “What do I do? I’m not sure...what to do. How to…” 

“How to seduce Stiles Stilinski?” Lydia asked, unaffectedly. “Trust me, sweetheart, it’s easy - you just show up.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed, not buying that for a moment. “I kissed him and he practically ran out of the room,” he reminded her.

“He was shocked,” Lydia said, with a wave of her hand.

“What if - what if it’s that I’m not _him_?” he asked her, slumping back against the wall.

“But you are him. Just not quite as broken.” She looked him up and down. “Or buff, but some things can’t be helped.”

Derek shifted, looking down at his body which - until that moment - he’d always been pretty confident about. “What if that’s what he likes?” 

“He likes you. It doesn’t really have anything to do with how big other you is. And you’re stronger than Stiles is still, despite being his size. You’re actually rather cute together.” She smiled, tilting her head and nodding. “So, show up. Make an effort. He’ll take care of the rest.” 

Derek had a feeling he looked as unconvinced as he felt because Lydia huffed a slightly frustrated breath as if things were so obvious and no one but Lydia could see it. “Lock the door next time. It’ll give him an idea and make it hard for him to run away.” 

“Great - let’s encourage some kind of Stockholm Syndrome!” Derek quipped with a faux smile. “I am not going to imprison Stiles so that he _can’t run away_ if it turns out that he _doesn’t want me_.”

“I didn’t say ‘can’t run away’, just harder to run away.” Lydia rolled her eyes. 

“Has anyone ever even dared tell you to your face that you’re kinda really scary? And getting more so by the minute. And they say that _I’m_ damaged goods…”

“Yes, I’ve been told that. I take it as a compliment.” She squared her shoulders then reached for his standing him up straight. “Just smile, do that adorable bashful puppy eye thing and make a move. He’ll fall straight away. Or push him into something. That works too, for some reason.” 

Derek’s face hardened. “Have you ever…”

Lydia laughed. “Oh my god - aren’t you just the precious little possessive one. For the record, no. And I have it on good authority that neither has anyone else.” She rolled her eyes. “Though, not for lack of trying from some people…”

“Malia.” Derek didn’t feel the need to make it a question and Lydia’s face was all the confirmation he needed. “I tried to talk to Scott about that. It’s not fair.”

Lydia looked confused. “What’s not fair? That she’s got Stiles half convinced they’re dating when she’s _clearly_ nothing more than a pet?”

“No - that everyone’s letting her believe that Stiles is her mate. It’s cruel - even more cruel if you’re saying he’s into me. She can’t help it. Scott said that she’s been a coyote for most of her life. She’s only following her instincts and nobody’s told her that what she’s doing? Is not okay.”

“She’ll figure it out,” Lydia said, unconcerned.

“No. She won’t. She’ll feel abandoned and confused. Betrayed. It’ll break the bond she’s formed with Stiles and undo a lot of the work he’s been doing with her. She needs to be told - to be let down gently.”

“Then you do it,” Lydia said. “You’re obviously the best person.”

“I’m the _worst_ person to talk to her about this.”

“But you understand it.”

“Sure, but I’m also the main competition for her mate. I try and tell her that she can’t have what she wants and it’s not going to come across as concern. It’s going to come across as an aggressive, territorial move. She’ll probably try and kill me.”

“She couldn’t kill you,” Lydia said shaking her head. 

“I think you’re mistaking me with the bigger, older version of me.” 

“No, not at all. You’ve had proper training because you grew up a werewolf. She’s still figuring out how to shift between human and coyote. Trust me, you can take her.” 

“That’s not… I’m not the best choice.” 

“Who then? You understand. No one else does.” 

Derek shrugged. “Stiles.” 

“He’s too nice.”

“You then.”

“I don’t…”

“I can tell you all you need to know. I can coach you through it. Apparently you’re pretty smart. You can pick this up. But someone needs to do this, and soon.”

Lydia considered it and for a long moment Derek thought she was going to say no. It wasn’t until she nodded that he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Alright, but you’ll go for it with him right?” 

“Yes. I will.” Derek nodded. He had to. He’d been itching to since the night before. “You care an awful lot about him don’t you?” 

Lydia nodded. “When there was no one else, no one else got me or what was going on with me, he was there. No one else has been there like that. That was really important to me.” 

"I don't know him, but...it feels like he does that. Like Stiles is just There. For everyone that needs him."

“Mmm,” Lydia said, humming her answer. “He is. It’s why he’s so important. He figures things out. He doesn’t give up until he figures them out. He’s always there. I think it’s what you, older you, likes about him.”

Derek shook his head. “I still don’t understand why, if older me likes him, why I - he - didn’t make a move.”

Lydia shrugged. “Older you has been through quite a lot. Older you has lost a lot of important people. If I had to guess, older you is worried about getting too close to another person and losing them too.” 

Derek’s face fell and the same feeling he’d had with Stiles the night before rose up like bile in his throat. “I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to be him.” It sounded miserable. Had he really lost so many people that he was keeping the person that made him feel comforted and safe at arm’s length on purpose? 

“I don’t blame you. I’m sure most of us would say the same thing if we got to go backwards, myself included.” Lydia said it plainly, as if it wasn’t a big deal, but there was a darkness in her eyes that Derek couldn’t miss. As if she’d seen things she wished she’d never seen. 

Derek turned and walked across to the other side of the room, needing some space. “Am I going to regret this? If - when - they find a way to change me back to how I was. Is it going to hurt Stiles - will I hurt Stiles?”

“Stiles is tougher than he looks,” Lydia said first, wanting to be clear on that point. She didn’t follow after Derek, but she did turn to keep him in her view. “As for regretting it? It’ll depend on what you remember right?” 

Derek hadn’t thought about that. If he went back, would he remember what happened to him now or would the memories be erased when his forgotten ones came back? “I don’t want to regret him.” 

“I don’t see how you could. You might regret the timing or the way, but I don’t think you could regret him.” She sounded wistful, something Derek didn’t expect from her. 

“Are you sure you never…” 

“Never. We aren’t like that, despite years of him trailing after me.” She paused for a moment, not looking at Derek, but when she spoke again her eyes were on his. “I’ve wished before that I could feel the way about him like he did about me. I can’t, I won’t, but I can tell it would be a nice thing.” 

“That’s… kinda odd, you know.”

“Says the boy who’s lost several years overnight.”

Derek smiled, smugly. “Yeah, but at least with mine magic’s to blame. You’re just pining after a guy you don’t even _want_.”

“Sometimes someone’s just not right for you. And I like him enough not to try and pretend that he might be. He’s…a nice guy, in the best possible way. He took me to a stupid high school dance once after I was blackmailed into going with him. He was…wonderful. He deserves someone who thinks he’s wonderful back,” she explained.

“So, then why don’t you like Malia?” Derek asked her, needing to be sure that he was seeing all of the angles here.

“I like Malia just fine.”

“Not with Stiles though.”

“No,” Lydia agreed. “Not with Stiles.”

“Why not?” 

Lydia huffed out a breath, clearly annoyed at the thought of Malia and Stiles together. “Because she’s not with Stiles because he’s Stiles. She’s with him because he found her. Because he was there and she sees him all wrong. And when she first went all human girl on him, he wasn’t all Stiles. He says he was in control, he remembers it properly and not distantly, but it still unnerves me.” 

“Am I a distraction?” Derek challenged.

“No! Don’t be so ridiculous! I told you - I don’t want him hurt. Using you as a distraction, with the wrong motivations, would just end up with him hurt. If all I wanted was a _distraction_ , then I’d use myself.” Lydia preened. “He wouldn’t be able to resist.”

“No, I don’t think he would,” Derek agreed, partially because it seemed right, but mostly because it seemed safest. “So what am I then?” 

“What he really wants.” 

“And he’s told you that?”

Lydia huffed and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are we going to go round and round with this all day?” she asked, as Derek returned the look. He could do stubborn and difficult just as well as - if not better - than she could.

“If that’s what it takes. Yes. My instinct trusts Stiles - that doesn’t exactly extend to you. You I’m… unsure of.” He frowned a little, trying to work out how he felt about Lydia, and trying to separate that out from this meeting where the conclusion he’d come to was ‘terrifying’. His instincts weren’t so confident, as though he hadn’t really made his mind up on her.

Lydia dropped the narrowed eyes look instantly again then rolled hers. “That’s about right. You’re always unsure. You trust that he trusts me, but that’s as far as it goes.” 

Derek let that roll around in his head for a while, feeling the way it lined up with his instincts and how it made sense. He would trust her as far as Stiles’ trusted her, but not because it was her, because it was Stiles. “Fair enough.” 

“Good. We have that settled now.” She checked her watch and then looked back at Derek. “I have to go - I have an appointment with my manicurist in ten. Remember what I said,” she warned, then turned on her scarily high heels and headed out of the door.

\-----

“Look, even if Deaton didn’t know what to do, we’ll figure something out. At least you’re healthy and not aging backwards or withering away or something,” Stiles continued on as Derek followed him into his room. He’d been talking non-stop since he’d arrived to pick Derek up from the clinic, as if he had to fill even the possibility of silence between them before anyone thought of things going quiet. Derek had stopped listening at least five minutes beforehand, his mind too preoccupied with his conversation with Lydia and how it colored the way he was looking at Stiles. 

“It makes me think of that scene in The Last Crusade where the guy drinks from the wrong cup and he speed ages and turns to bones, only like the opposite-” 

“Stiles.” 

Stiles shut up midstream, bag hanging off one hand over his bed like he’d been about to drop it but froze when Derek said his name. So that was how Derek got him to shut up when he got older. It was that simple. “What are you talking about?” 

“Indiana Jones…” 

“Why?” 

Stiles shifted on his feet and dropped his bag without making eye contact. “I was just thinking about it and-” 

“And you’re talking just to talk?” 

Stiles looked everywhere but at him and Derek smirked, knowing that the other guy was trying to come up with some kind of comeback, but was failing to think of anything. Knowing the way that Stiles’ mouth worked seemingly independently of his brain at times, Derek was counting that as a win. 

“You’re avoiding talking about the other night,” Derek pointed out.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to talk about it,” Stiles said, still not looking at Derek, who frowned and moved into Stiles’ line of sight.

“Why would you think that?” he asked, stepping to keep firmly in view as Stiles attempted to avoid him.

The question finally made Stiles look at him. “Because it’s what you do, Derek! You’re not exactly the ‘let’s talk about our feelings’ heart to heart kind of a guy.”

“No - _he’s_ not that type. Maybe I am.”

“Are you?”

“Maybe. Sorta. Are you? Do you want to talk about it? Because I can talk about it.” Stiles tried to dodge eye contact again, but Derek couldn’t let him. He couldn’t lose that contact. Not now. Not when they were so close. 

“I have no idea if I am or not. I’ve seen you hunched over dead bodies and you never say a word. I want to say things, but you don’t so I have no idea if we’re supposed to or not.” 

“So, instead you just talk and fill the silence?” Derek questioned.

“Sometimes. Sometimes we just sit, neither of us saying anything. Other times you just want to be left alone.”

“What do you do then?” 

Stiles shrugged, glancing at Derek. “Then I leave you alone.”

There, that was so much of it, Derek realised. Stiles’ ability to just know what he needed, and his willingness to give it to him, without question. That instinct, and from a human. No wonder something had grown. “What about when it’s the other way round?” Derek asked him, quietly. “When there’s something you need?”

Stiles swallowed and ran his hand over the back of his neck. He did that when he was nervous, Derek realized. “I don’t need anything,” he said too quickly. 

“You know I don’t believe that.” 

“Remember what I said about Scott letting me have the lie?” 

“I’m not Scott.” 

Stiles sighed and shrugged. “He’s there sometimes. Sometimes...no one’s there. I’m not really one who people do that for.” 

Derek frowned, his brows bunching together as he itched to reach out and touch Stiles. Touch had always been important to him and his family. So much of communication was non-verbal, his mother had always said. “I have a hard time believing that I’m him, sometimes.”

“You’d do things differently?” Stiles asked him. 

“I’d be there for you. Unless you told me not to be. Then I’d…” He trailed off, knowing that the rest of that sentence could be considered fairly creepy.

“Then you’d what?” Stiles pushed. Of course he pushed. Derek sighed.

“Then I’d… keep an eye on you. From a distance. Make sure you were okay.”

“Okay that actually sounds more like you than anything else you’ve said.” Stiles chewed on his lip for a moment. “Is that really what you’d do? That’s what the lurking is for?” 

Derek shrugged. “Probably. It’s why I would lurk now. Do you have to call it lurking?” 

There was a ghost of a smile on Stiles’ features, but he wound up nodding. “That makes sense. It’s actually… Kinda nice.” 

“I was worried you’d find it creepy,” Derek confessed.

“Well - yeah. I mean no - not now that I know what it’s for, but older you? Lurks, and it’s always kinda freaked me out a little. Like - why would you do that. Only, now I know and… Yeah. Kinda really sweet,” Stiles told him, seeming pleasantly confused by it all.

“Sweet?” 

Stiles rolled his eyes in a way that Derek was starting to think that he did when the two Derek’s lined up with one another. “Yes sweet. I know. Sweet cramps your style,” he said, shaking his head until Derek had his hand on his arm, pulling him closer. 

“No. Not that. It’s...That’s the sweetest thing I’ve done for you?” 

“Um. Yes. Unless you count the shoving and threatening, but that I think that’s sweet sometimes might just be a sign that something’s wrong with me.” 

“I don’t count the shoving and the threatening,” Derek confirmed, leaving his hand on Stiles’ arm, overtly aware that Stiles hadn’t told him not to do that. Tacit permission to touch that was only overridden by concern for Stiles as he added, “And yeah, I am kinda concerned that you’d count that kind of thing as sweet. Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re talking to me. And it usually comes on the tail end of needing me. Not _needing_ me but you know actually needing my help or something. I guess there’s a few times when you’ve saved my life that it’s really sweet, but… God I have issues. You have given me a complex.” 

“I’m sorry,” Derek apologized, feeling guilty for something that he hadn’t even done. Not in his memory, anyway. Yet, this guy’s - this really amazing guy’s - issues were down to him. Maybe Lydia was wrong. Maybe getting involved with him was exactly the very last thing Stiles actually needed. Maybe that was something that his older, wiser, more mature and responsible self had realised.

“Oh don’t do that. Don’t apologize. It’s fine. And it’s weird when you apologize.” Stiles shook his head. 

“I don’t apologize?” 

“Rarely. It’s fine. Seriously, stop making that sad puppy face. God, you were torture when you were younger weren’t you?” 

“I was?” Derek asked, confused at that.

“Yeah, with… That face. That probably got you everything you ever wanted, didn’t it?”

“I don’t think...not really Cora’s better at it I guess?” 

“Cora? Really? I guess I could see that when she was smaller. She’s kinda harsh now. Hot, but harsh.” 

“You think my sister’s hot?” Derek said, still looking confused. 

“Well yeah, she’s like a girl version of you only less...stop making that face!” 

“What face?”

“You’re pouting and it’s like the cutest thing ever. You’re supposed to scowl. It makes wanting to kiss you seem dangerous, not like the best thing ever.” 

“Yeah, well, kissing you seemed like the best idea ever right up until the point that I realised that older me seems to have really fucked you up. Now I’m wondering if I’d just make things worse,” Derek admitted, though he made absolutely no effort to step back out of Stiles’ personal space. Or stop pouting.

“You always make things worse. Same with the fucking me up, but it’s a damn good fucked up,” Stiles insisted. “Just stop with that...god I’m going to dream about that face. When we get you back to older you I want that face like all the fucking...oh fuck it just get over here,” he said, grabbing Derek by the neck of his t-shirt and hauling him in.

This time, Stiles kissed him. It was the kind of kiss that made Derek realize just how long Stiles had been thinking about doing just that. It was eager, hurried and hard to catch up with, but the moment he did Stiles went from pushing to pliant, taking what Derek gave him. He was used to being the beta, used to someone else being dominant. For all his talk, Stiles was fine with being the the one guided and Derek was surprised to find he didn’t mind being the guide. He stopped thinking and let instinct take over, sliding a hand round to hold Stiles at the base of his neck, fingers drifting up into his hair. The fact that Derek was ever so slightly smaller than Stiles was more apparent when they were like this, meaning that Derek had to tip his chin up a little to get the best angle.

Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be the right thing, as Stiles wrapped his arms around him, pulling Derek in tight. In return, Derek kissed him until he couldn’t breathe, pulling back, but not going far, keeping his fingers in Stiles’ hair, mouth still close enough to press tiny, breathless kisses against him. 

“It would figure you’ve always been good at that,” Stiles murmured, voice a little ragged from being out of breath himself. 

“I’m good at other things too,” Derek said because he couldn’t help it, liking the way Stiles shivered against him when he said it. He wasn’t entirely sure it was true, but he’d been told it so maybe it was worth putting out there as he dropped his head to kiss down the length of Stiles’ neck. He thrilled silently at the way Stiles just dropped his head to the side, lengthening the column of his neck. He wondered if Stiles had any idea what that gesture meant to a werewolf. So trusting and submissive. Such a lovely thing to see. His older self was an idiot, regardless of his so called reasons for not taking this.

Stiles’ heart was pounding, Derek could hear it, but his hands were still bunching in Derek’s shirt pulling it up to run fingers over the bare skin at Derek’s lower back. The spark of contact made Derek growl quietly against Stiles’ neck and Stiles’ knees buckled slightly. “Oh god I knew you’d do that,” he groaned like his fantasy was coming true. “I knew you’d growl through the entire damn thing.” And it sounded like it would be the hottest thing that Stiles could imagine. The older version of himself had made an impression on him hadn’t he? 

“Do you want me to growl?” Derek asked - both because he was sure that was exactly what Stiles wanted and also because, for all his various teenaged fantasies and experiences, he hadn’t actually done this all that much.

“Yes, you stupid wolf,” Stiles said, pulling at his shirt more. “I fell for the version of you that slams me into walls. Of course you growling is hot as hell.” Derek let Stiles pull his shirt up and away and drop to the floor because it meant he got to take Stiles’ too. Stiles got held up in his shirt though, half pulling it off, staring at Derek. “You’re so young…” 

“And pointing that out right now is not a turn on,” Derek growled, reaching to pull Stiles’ shirt off for him, not expecting it when Stiles took a step back.

“No, no - wait,” Stiles said, sounding confused and looking lost. “God, but you’re so young.”

“I’m sixteen!” Derek protested.

“Which is like a decade… okay I have no idea how old you really are, but you’re really young now!” 

“I’m at most two years younger than you. Probably more like a year and half. It’s not even illegal or anything.” Derek reached for Stiles, getting his hand on his shirt and pulling him back, which he managed, but probably only because he was stronger. 

“Illegal doesn’t matter. Seriously it doesn’t. Not to me at least. I’ve been trying to telepathically communicate that for a year or so, but...I feel like I’m breaking a rule now.” Stiles was staring at his chest, baffled look on his features. “Do you even shave at this age?” 

“Yes! I shave! …. Sometimes!” Derek protested. This wasn’t at all going the way that he’d anticipated. Stiles had been so soft and pliant and willing and now he was talking to him like Derek was some kind of a child. “You know, you’re not the oldest person I’ve been with!” he exclaimed, pulling that out as an angry trump card and looking bewildered when Stiles suddenly paled and looked as though he was going to be sick.

Stiles shifted back and this time Derek let him, too focused on the look on Stiles’ face. “Yeah. Yeah I know about that,” Stiles said shaking his head. “I… Oh shit, I can’t be her.” He ran his hands over his face and sat on his bed hands over his mouth still. 

“You know about Kate?” Derek asked, reaching for his shirt because he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s why I sit at arm’s length unless you’re unconscious or paralyzed.” Stiles looked at his hands and shook his head like he was finally understanding something important, something he hadn’t been able to figure out before. 

Derek sunk down into the desk chair. He didn’t understand what was wrong, but he got enough to clue into the fact that he wasn’t welcome on the bed right now. “I know she’s not around anymore,” he said slowly. Stiles hiccuped a laugh. “Scott said something about her being the cause of this - me being like this. Did it - did it end badly? If she’s still angry at me, things must have gone on for a while, right? Did we… break up? She - doesn’t feel as important to me now as she did then. Did I - was I the one to end it?”

Stiles brought his hands up to cover his mouth, exhaling loudly between them and then pushed them up into his hair, like he was preparing for something really bad. Derek just watched him, confused and with that feeling again that there was a lot going on that nobody was telling him.

“Kate…” Stiles started, then broke off, huffing a breath. He nodded to himself and continued, determinedly, “Kate used you. You were young, she was hot, nobody realised that she was a complete fucking sociopath. She was a member of a well established family of hunters, but she didn’t give a rats ass about their code of conduct. In her opinion, all werewolves should be hunted down and killed - along with everyone they associated with.”

Derek’s world tilted so much at that that he was sure he’d fallen off the desk chair. He had to have. Everything he’d known, all of it, all of changed. “She...she hurt them… She’s the one…” 

Stiles leaned forward, reaching for Derek’s hand and it was the only thing anchoring him, the only thing keep him from shifting though he felt his eyes shift, knowing they were glowing blue. “She started the fire. She trapped them there. She-” 

“She used me to get to them. I let her…” 

“You didn’t know,” Stiles said, his voice firm and steady, his touch just the same.

“How could I have not _known_!” Derek exclaimed. 

“She seduced you…”

“She _killed my family_! And I…” His eyes widened as he thought of everything they'd done together. The ways she’d touched him. God - the things she’d _taught_ him. Kate. His Kate. Who had promised him forever, all the while planning to take everything he had from him.

Stiles shook his head, hand squeezing tighter like it might bring Derek back to him. “You didn’t know. Not until it was too late. Trust me, anyone would have done the same.” 

“You wouldn’t!” 

Stiles blinked twice before swallowing. “No. But that's because I don’t trust anyone who likes me. I’m no you.” 

“You mean you’re not an idiotic fool who got his entire family _murdered_ ,” Derek said, his tone betraying every ounce of self-loathing he was currently feeling.

“I’m the idiotic fool that falls for someone that hates him.”

“Which sounds pretty much exactly what I did,” Derek pointed out, bitterly.

“You've been a little more up front about hating me,” Stiles said softly. “She was terrible, but it's not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for something she did. You can blame yourself for trusting too easily or loving the wrong person but not for what she did. You had no idea she would.” 

“How did she do it?” Derek asked him, forcefully, standing up. “Your dad’s the Sheriff, right? He’ll have a… case file, or something? I want a copy - I want to know what happened. I want to know what she did.” He turned to Stiles, who was staring at him, open mouthed. “What?”

“You… I - there are these moments, when you look so much like your older self,” Stiles breathed.

“I am him,” Derek ground out. “I want that file, then I’m going to find her and I’m going to rip her throat out.”

“Peter already tried that,” Stiles said with a shrug, but Stiles was getting up, leaning past Derek to pull a file out from under a book on his desk. “It didn’t work did it? He just...turned her into something I guess.” Stiles sat back on the bed and handed the old file to Derek. “I shouldn’t give you that. It’ll make you try and kill people. Did last time.”

“Then why are you giving it to me.” Why did Stiles have it? 

“Because I know what it’s like to _have_ to know the answer. And there’s a lot of answers in there. It’s also more complete than last time. Peter tracked down and killed all of her accomplices. Then he killed her.” 

“Good. Remind me to thank him,” Derek ground out. “Even if he didn’t finish the job.”

Stiles sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “Look, Der - just… don’t do anything stupid, okay? Let us help you. I get what it’s like to lost family. I lost my mom and okay, she wasn’t brutally murdered by a psychopath or anything but gone is gone. It’s just me and my dad now and… him having a dangerous job aside, if anyone even even tries to hurt him?” Stiles didn’t answer that, just shook his head.

Derek looked up at Stiles, frowning. “Then you of all people should know how important this is. How she doesn’t get to hurt everyone I love and not suffer.” 

“I know. I know that. But I also know you can’t get them back. It won’t make them come back, it’ll make more of you disappear. And I know what it’s like to have darkness in your chest and lose most of your family. I’ve only got one piece left and no matter what I do, I can’t bring the rest back.” 

“They’re more than family, they’re pack,” Derek insisted. “You know about pack. You have a pack. You know they’re family. Imagine if they were both.” 

“I don’t have a pack. I have my dad.” 

“And Scott, and Lydia. And Malia and Kira and Deaton.” 

“They don’t… it’s not the same.”

“ _Exactly_. Pack and family - it’s more. It’s _everything_. You said that you and Scott were like brothers. Imagine if he was really your blood. That bond and she…”

“Derek. I’m not trying to argue with you that what she did isn’t terrible. It was, and it always will be. I just - I want to help you step back from the murderous rampage. Please. We’ve been there and it never leads to good things. It leads to bad things. Very, very bad things.”

“What bad things? How could it be worse than it already is?” Derek demanded. 

“You die.” 

That was enough to slow Derek, eyes blinking at Stiles. “I die?” 

“Yes. You do something stupid like take on someone you can’t handle and you seem to die and then I don’t see you again for a couple of days or weeks and I get to spend those days and weeks thinking you’re dead. And that sucks for everyone. So yes. Bad. Things. Terrible things.” 

“But I didn’t die,” Derek pointed out, slowly.

“Like that actually matters when I - we all - thought you did! We thought you were dead, Derek. Dead. Then there was another time when you were just _gone_ and I had no idea, none at all, whether you were actually ever coming back. You say you’re all about pack? That it means so much? Let’s work as a pack. Together. I don’t want to lose anyone else.” There was a sadness in the air and Derek knew there was something Stiles wasn’t saying.

“Who else?” he asked. “My family. Your mom. There’ve been others, haven’t there?”

Stiles looked down and away. “Too many to count. Recently… Scott’s… his ex-girlfriend, but she was - the way he talked, for him, she was his forever.”

Derek was quiet, watching Stiles. “What happened? Did I…” 

“Nope, that was definitely me. Or well, the monster who was using me as a meat suit, but yeah, that was me.” Stiles sighed and seemed to pull himself together before looking up at Derek again. “Say it. Say we’ll work on this together.” 

Derek shook his head. “This isn’t your fight.” 

“Hell yes it is. We’re pack remember. It’s my fight as much as it is yours.”

“You might get hurt.”

“I might get hurt anyway, Derek. You can’t protect me by leaving me out of things. Anyway, if you were _you_ then you’d already know that doesn’t work. One doesn’t simply leave Stiles Stilinski out of things.”

“Stop paraphrasing Lord of the Rings, Stiles,” Derek deadpanned sa Stiles’ face lit up in delight.

“Oh my god - you _do_ know how to have fun!” he crowed.

“It’s a movie,” Derek said, thrown at how excited Stiles seemed to be because he caught a reference from one of the biggest movies of his teen years. Everyone had seen those films.

“Yeah - I know! Amazing. I was kinda thinking that you just stood around looking brooding, or bad tempered or…”

“And you like me, why?” Derek interrupted.

Stiles smirked a little. “A good question. Don’t have an answer for it. I think I keep hoping there’s someone under there who’s seen a movie or four.” 

“I’m starting to think you’re nuts.” 

“That’s not news. Nor are you the only one who thinks that. But you’re avoiding. Tell me that we’ll work on things together.”

Derek scowled - after all, it had been Stiles who had deflected with stupid movie joke. It wasn’t fair that he then called Derek on picking up the subject and running with it. “Fine,” Derek practically growled. “We’ll work on this together. I’m keeping this,” he said, holding up the case file. 

“Just don’t let my dad see it. I’m not supposed to have it. It’s a public document, but I got it before the case was closed.” Stiles shrugged, then looked at his hands for a moment. “Are you mad because I called you young?” 

“I’m not mad. Trust me - moment well and truly over,” Derek said. “I get it - you don’t want to touch me if it makes you feel like her.” He laughed, harshly. “We should work on making me old again. Then I can not touch you for exactly the same reason. Face it, Stiles - we’re just not meant to be.” Derek understood now, why everyone said that his older self was so angry all the time. So miserable and volatile. To have to live with these feelings, for years. Derek was surprised that he hadn’t been thrown into Eichen House and never let out again.

Stiles wavered a little, then nodded, getting up too quickly. “Yeah that’s...fair.” He looked anxious again, like before. “You should go. You’ve got the whole file to read and that.” He waved towards the door. 

Derek closed his eyes for a moment, wishing that they could just go back to ten minutes ago, and for none of this to ever have happened. Wishing for this to go back to years ago, when he was really this age and he could stop everything from going wrong. Wishes never came true though, so instead he opened his eyes and walked out of the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Derek had decided that he needed to stop relying on Stiles for so much, and so instinctively. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t good for either of them. The only sensible alternative seemed to be to go to his only living family remaining in town.

He didn’t mention it to Stiles, quite the opposite, in fact. He waited in his room for Stiles to leave for school. He couldn’t face him right now - not after the clusterfuck that was last night. Not when feelings were so raw. Not when the scent of Stiles pervaded everything. 

He didn’t think twice, though, of going through Stiles’ room until he found what he figured was Peter’s address - which also seemed to be _his_ address, if the overheard conversation about ‘the loft’ was anything to go off. It would be a long run without any transport, but after everything that had happened, Derek was itching for it.

The relationship between him and his uncle had always had its ups and downs. They had been close, once. Derek had looked up to Peter, several years older than him. Talia used to laugh about how Derek would follow her much younger brother round like a little lost puppy when he was a child. When they were teenagers, Peter assumed the role more of advisor than true friend. Even that had fallen apart after Paige. Derek had trusted Peter, listened to him and Paige had died. After that, Peter had left town for a while. In Derek’s limited memory, Peter had only been back in Beacon Hills for a few months, with a new wife who was already pregnant. He’d been so happy.

The Peter who opened the door was older, new lines on his face and signs of dark times in his past. This Peter also clearly had not been warned of his nephew’s fate.

“I don’t like this dream,” Peter said. “It’s a terrible one. Because if I remember correctly at this size you had no control.” 

“I _have_ control.” 

“On a full moon?” 

“I have control.” 

“Sure you do kiddo,” Peter said, rolling his eyes and moving out of the way to let Derek into the loft. His loft he supposed. Stiles had been right in calling it Spartan. There wasn’t that much in it, but at least it was nice. “So what did you get yourself into that you’ve shrunk.” 

“I thought you thought I was a dream.” 

Peter laughed darkly and rolled his eyes, going back to the couch and his book. “Dream or not, you’ve gotten yourself into something stupid. That’s what you usually do. Did you follow the baby wolf somewhere again? I knew I made a mistake biting him. Should have gone with the skinny one. At least he’s less noble.” 

“He’s noble.” 

“Not like Scott is. Scott has that whole true alpha thing going on. Stiles is dark. He’s seen death. He respects it. I rather enjoyed the possessed version of him. He was even better.” 

This Peter may have been bigger than him by a long way now, but Derek didn't even pause in hauling him up of the couch, letting him go once he was on his feet only long enough to hit him with a strong right hook. “Don't talk about him like that!” Derek growled. 

“Oh ho ho,” Peter crowed gleefully as he straightened up and rubbed his cheek. Derek swayed onto his back foot, ready for a retaliation, which never came. “You finally clued in, did you? Decided to finally be slightly less noble and self-sacrificing and open your eyes. Or is it just that at this age you always did have that penchant for being a lovesick fool.”

“I’m not lovesick,” Derek insisted, but the words felt hollow. Even more so when Peter laughed at him. 

“Oh but you are. Paige. Kate. Now Stiles, though I was sure you’d never come around to that. It was obvious because your reasoning for keeping him around is so different than mine, but he never picked up on your whole I glare because I care repertoire.” Peter sat back on the couch, but didn’t pick up the book again. 

“What’s your reasoning for keeping him around?” Derek asked.

“He’s useful. He always has been.” Peter sounded like it was obvious, flippant. 

“He’s pack,” Derek countered.

Peter tilted his head to the side. “Not your pack. He’s never been your pack. Closest he came to our pack was when I offered to bite him years ago. He turned me down, but I like to think it’s still a standing offer, even if I can’t do much at this point as far as changing him, but we could find someone.”

“What do you mean he’s not my pack?”

“Contrary to your feelings plus your newly rekindled raging hormones, Stiles Stilinski doesn’t belong to you. He’s Scott’s. And you don’t belong to Scott either.”

Derek looked confused. “Stiles feels like pack,” he said, tilting his head to the side, his eyebrows drawing in in a very lupine expression. _He feels like mine_. He didn’t add that part aloud, though he did say, “Stiles is with Scott, and Scott’s an alpha. There aren’t any other alphas around. So - Scott’s my alpha.” It wasn’t quite a question, but there was a hesitation there. The fact that he had to say that to Peter made Derek think that maybe he was about to be told that wasn’t the case. Turned out, he was dead set to rights on that.

“No - Scott’s not your alpha. You’re not part of his pack. When you were alpha, he wouldn’t join your pack. Now you won’t join his. You just skirt around the edges.”

“Why?”

“Moral highground, trust issues, who knows. I’ve been curious why you haven’t broken down, but you’ve got something that’s holding you back. Frankly I don’t care. They _might_ let you in, but me, not so much. It’s more fun when you and I are on the same page,” Peter said, though the end was with such sarcasm he couldn’t tell if the older man actually meant it or not.

“Why wouldn’t they let you in?” Derek recalled some of the looks he had seen pass between the others. He didn’t know what they meant.

Peter laughed again, almost in disbelief. “Did your shrinking take all your memories too?” he asked, but then his face shifted as if realizing something. “You’re...Oh. Well in that case. No one likes me. You don’t like me, as you’ve said more than once. You don’t trust me either, which is a fault of yours not mine.”

“What is that supposed to even mean?”

“You killed me once, not including the fire, which was at least partially your fault or your terrible taste in women’s fault. Lucky for you, I don’t die that easily. Well you and Lydia, precious flower that she is. So no, they don’t like when you rise from the dead and use their little banshee for it. Though in my defense I just thought biting her viciously would turn her if she survived the bite and maybe rope that precious Stiles of yours into my service. I wasn’t expecting it to awaken her true gifts.”

Derek was hit with the double whammy of feels there. It made his head spin. Peter blamed him for the fire. The way he blames himself. The way others were so quick to say he shouldn’t be blamed. He felt sick and he knew it showed on his face as he took the other issue. “I killed you? Why?”

Peter gave a whole hearted laugh. “They haven’t told you, have they? How precious. Are they protecting little Derek’s feelings?”

“Shut up they aren’t,” Derek insisted though he knew that was exactly what it was. Stiles protecting him, Scott keeping the dark parts of his history hidden. “Answer the question,” he growled. 

“I went rogue. Alpha,” Peter told him, and Derek knew there was something else he wasn’t saying.

“Alpha...how did you...” That wasn’t the order in the family, but maybe if only Peter had been left. He was more likely than Derek even if it was Laura that his mother had been training as an alpha. 

“You’re young, not stupid, Derek,” Peter told him, but Derek didn’t understand what the other man was implying. Still, Peter kept talking, “Kate killed my wife. My son. My sister. My _family_. She left me a comatose wreck with scars covering almost my entire body while your sister took you and ran. Disappeared. The remnants of my pack _left me to die_. Only, I didn’t. I was left in a room, alone, locked inside my own head, replaying the death of everyone I loved over and over and over and all I could think about was getting revenge on the person who did that to them. Whatever the cost. To do that, I needed to heal myself.”

Derek felt a pang of guilt that he’d left his uncle behind, especially considering the history he had with the older man, but something was still missing wasn’t it? “How did you do it?” That had to be the question, what he was avoiding

“I killed your sister,” Peter said, looking Derek straight in the eye. Derek thought that he saw a flicker of remorse there, hidden behind Peter’s usual self-assured front, but then any sense of deeper awareness left Derek entirely and he practically flew at his uncle, fangs and claws bared.

Peter had never been much of a fighter, always one to talk while Derek liked action, but whilst Derek thought he had the upper hand, it was like Peter knew it was coming. Like he was waiting for it. Like he was amazed it took this long for Derek to snap. They tangled for a moment, claws, teeth, howling, and Derek was sure he’d sunk into flesh more than once, but before he could call it a victory, Peter won out by sheer size alone and Derek was flying across the room until he connected with a wall hard.

Derek was already scrambling up when Peter roared at him, eyes shining the same blue as Derek’s. They were both betas, but Peter had the advantage right now, and Derek stayed down, collapsing back against the wall, his wounds already beginning to knit closed. “Why?” he growled at his uncle.

“Because it needed to be done.”

“I hate you.”

“Of course you do, but that doesn’t change the reality of the situation. You started this - and I ended it.”

“Not well enough,” Derek spat. “They think she did this to me.”

Peter looked human again, but with a different shade of evil Derek hadn’t seen moments before. He tilted his head back and forth as if working out the kinks in his neck and shoulders before leveling a glare on Derek. “She couldn’t. She’s dead. I killed her.”

“Not very well then,” Derek said.

“I killed her,” Peter said, as if saying it with more determination would actually make it true. “I ripped out her throat.”

“I killed you, apparently. That didn’t work either.”

“That’s different,” Peter said though his demeanor was starting to waver.

“It’s not. Or doesn’t seem like it.” Derek got himself to his feet again, looking at the blood stains and holes in the shirt Stiles had loaned him. He supposed the other boy wasn’t getting it back at this point. “What does she want?”

“Hell if I know,” Peter said, though he’d taken a few steps as if he might start pacing, but thought better of it. “Course I did kill her if she survived she might be less Kate and more something else. That might make the bitch angry.”

Derek looked at his uncle through his brows, tilting his head to the side in a truly sarcastic way. “You think?”

Peter rolled his eyes and huffed. “So now she’s a psychopathic hunter and also a werewolf.”

“Who knows enough about magic to do _this_ to me,” Derek added, gesturing to his own body. “Which given that nobody round here even knows how she did this, never mind how to undo it, is really saying something. She has resources that we just don’t.”

“I think that goes beyond resources,” Peter said, looking Derek over. “Especially for a hunter. I’d think she had help.”

“Help? Who would help her?”

“Who have you pissed off recently?”

Derek let out a sigh that was halfway to a growl. “How the hell would I know. Far as I’m concerned, I’m still playing high school basketball, just everyone around me is either dead or older. You wanna know who I’ve pissed off, you’re gonna have to ask Stiles.” 

“Or Scott, or any of the rest of his pack,” Peter added in, with dry amusement. “You really do have it bad, don’t you.”

“Shut up,” Derek said, actually growling this time.

“Hackles down, pup,” Peter said, more sharply this time. “Merely an observation. Go on then. Why don’t you call your boy toy. Get him over here and we can fill in some of those gaps, maybe.” Derek hesitated - something Peter immediately picked up on, his mouth stretching into a wide smile. “Oh - are you avoiding him, hmm? Trouble in paradise?”

“Shut. Up.”

“What did you do nephew? Did you disrupt the delicate balance your older self was so desperate to maintain?” Peter sat back on the couch, chuckling to himself.

“I don't understand why I needed that so badly,” Derek blurted before he could stop himself.

“Neither did I,” Peter admitted. “You could have taken that to bed long ago. Probably even when he was still hating you. Got it out of your system.” Peter was ignoring the glower Derek was directing at him, and the way Derek’s mouth curled up to expose his teeth, just shy of growing fangs. He could feel his claws itching to grow at the ends of his fingers, but he held himself back. “I think that maybe the whole situation reminded you too much of Kate,” Peter said, clearly enjoying pushing Derek’s buttons, all smarmy swagger and tight, amused looks. “You didn’t trust yourself - the older guy, defiling and corrupting the young, naive virgin. I think that every time you looked in the mirror when you thought of him, you saw her staring back at you.”

Derek halted a little on that, thinking of Stiles, how he seemed to get it when they’d been together, why Derek had had such an issue with his age.

“Why you were so worried about corrupting Stiles of all people is beyond me. Scott's the innocent one. Though... Well Stiles is probably still the virgin.” Peter was still talking, but Derek was lost in his thoughts, replaying his last conversation between himself and Stiles. Derek knew he’d even said it, then - that the older version of himself wouldn’t touch Stiles for fear of being like Kate.

Derek realised that Peter had stopped talking and was looking at him, expectantly. “Stiles is… precious,” he supplied, because he needed to talk to someone about this - even if it was someone who by all rights and accounts he hated. For all his sins, Peter still felt like pack.

“Well, yes, the boy is a cute little thing,” Peter quipped, to which Derek shook his head.

“No, not like that. He’s… important.” Derek wasn’t sure how many other ways he could actually find to try and explain the same thing to Peter. It made him wonder if his uncle was simply stringing him along for the fun of it, waiting to see if Derek would either grow bored or, more likely, frustrated with the questioning and the trying to explain himself.

“Important? To what? You relaxing a little and experimenting or important to saving the world?” Peter asked. “My guess that is that you’re currently mixing the two up and it’s more the first than the second.”

“Important to _me_ ,” Derek corrected, practically grinding the words out.

Peter stopped at that and turned to him, looking at Derek more intently - assessing him. Derek stood firm, his eyes narrowed into a glare. Then Peter laughed. “Oh my - you really are literally quite the lovesick puppy. Why do you do this to yourself, nephew. Allow one person to take everything you are. Paige wasn’t strong enough to handle it. Kate abused it. Stiles… Isn’t even aware of it.” Peter paused, then added, “Or is he?”

Derek knew he couldn’t lie to Peter. Peter would be able to tell. “He... I didn’t know he wouldn’t be aware. He feels right. Why would he feel like that if he didn’t know?” 

“I’m guessing he does now? Oh I hope you remember this when you come back to yourself. Watching you deal with that trauma will be hilarious.” 

Derek glared at him intently. “I am so glad to hear that my pain is funny to you,” he ground out.

“Schadenfruede my dear nephew. Plus, I like the idea of Stiles switching to love sick puppy once you’re the older one again. It’s a good look on him.” Peter chuckled to himself then leveled his eyes on Derek. “So what exactly did you do? And what are you going to do now?”

“I kissed him. Then... he kissed me. Then it became really fucking obvious that it was never going to happen,” Derek said, knowing as he spoke that he was indulging in self-pity.

Peter just grinned at the self pity and went with it, poking at it with his next comment. “I don’t see how him kissing you makes it obvious that it’s never going to happen. Normally that would indicate the opposite.”

“Yeah, well, normal doesn’t really include the guy you’re getting it on with suddenly deciding he’s as bad as the bitch who killed your family, for ‘taking advantage’ of someone he clearly sees as a kid. Or the fact that it seems pretty likely that the older version of me sees homing exactly the same way. Neither of us want to be _her._ “

Peter made an amused noise. “Stiles hasn’t been a child since before you stopped being one,” Peter agreed. “And while I hate to give you compliments, you aren’t her.” 

“There’s a long way from ‘compliment’ to ‘congratulations on not being a sociopath’,” Derek pointed out. “Stiles is still a lot younger than I should be. There’s got to be a reason I never... did anything.”

“I don’t claim to understand you, but my guess is that there’s a healthy dose of fear there. You haven’t had the best of luck in love.” Derek thought that might be an understatement, but he just scowled at Peter. Derek couldn’t imagine ever being afraid of Stiles. It wasn’t just because he was human, it was simply because he was, well, _Stiles_. It wasn’t something that he could properly put into words, but his wolf understood it implicitly. If his older self was holding back from fear, then it wasn’t anything instinctual.

“Stiles wouldn’t hurt me,” Derek said finally, not sounding nearly as sure about the comment as he wanted to. Instead, he sounded confused, which he was, but he hadn’t meant to convey.

“Well, no. He talks a big game, but mostly he’s proven the opposite. Especially when it comes to saving your life.” Peter sighed and rolled his eyes before starting again. “As much as I am loathe to dig through the inner workings of your love life, I think this is hardly rooted in instincts and being a werewolf. This is your human side. Go ask one of your human friends.”

Derek side-eyed Peter. “Do you not have a human side?” he asked because he couldn’t resist. He didn’t know how he’d fallen into getting advice from Peter anyhow, especially considering the latest of revelations - god, was he ever going to be able to have a conversation that didn’t involve some kind of new horror about his life and his loved ones?. He should talk to someone else, Peter was right about that much. His only pause was - did he even have any human friends? Aside from Stiles himself? Would older Derek consider Lydia a friend? Did a banshee count? He knew nothing about them.

“Ha. Ha,” Peter said, drolly. “You know entirely what I mean. Go and... take that constipated look that screams that you’re thinking too much right now with you.”

Derek glared at Peter, but from the way his uncle looked more amused than anything else, he guessed it fell a little short of angry. “I’m not -”

“Don’t start. You were an open book at this age. It’s years before you replace all those emotions on your face with anger. Go,” Peter interrupted, waving Derek away.

“This is apparently my loft, you know,” Derek pointed out.

“Last I checked, you’re currently a minor and you can’t own property. Technically I’m your guardian,” Peter mused. “So for the moment the loft is mine.”

“I bet my driver’s license still says I’m... however old I’m actually meant to be.” Nobody had actually been clear on that so far. He was just ‘older’. God, how many years had he actually lost? And did he even really want to know? Wow - maybe he was a creepy old man, hitting on Stiles. Or, no, wait, he couldn’t be - Peter wasn’t that old. Derek considered it and decided he was probably somewhere in his early twenties. “That’s the problem with werewolves, you can never actually tell,” he muttered to himself.

“Things that keep your little human up at night,” Peter agreed, shaking his head. “And no one is going to believe your license is yours. Trust me. You look nothing like you do now.”

Derek wondered if that was true - if Stiles spent any time at all wondering about their ages. He almost laughed at the thought. Given their situation, he was sure of it. Just as he was sure that Stiles hadn’t done anything so simple as to just, say, _ask_. Derek shook his head with a little smile.

“Oh - there you go again. You know, you two just need to get over yourselves. Getting laid will do you both the world of good. And maybe, if he sleeps with you, you could convince him to take the bite. That one would be an asset to any pack.”

“Shut up Peter.” Derek wasn’t going to sleep with Stiles, odds were not in favor of that. Nor was he going to convince Stiles to take the bite. Not if Stiles didn’t want to. 

“I thought you were leaving.”

Derek held Peter’s gaze for a moment, then realized that there was no way he was going to win this one. “Fine,” he growled. “I’m going.” Where, he had no idea. He’d find something. “In the meantime, you’re going to do something for me. Find out what she did. Find out how to change me back.” Derek was under no illusions - this wasn’t right. He had no wish to stay a sixteen year old when that clearly wasn’t what he was meant to be. They needed to undo what Kate had done, and the sooner the better.

“Fine,” Peter said though his growl was mocking, still waving Derek away. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’ll just wear off.” 

Derek just rolled his eyes at that. “Because my life has been just full of lucky breaks,” he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Look into it. Tell me if you find anything.”

Peter smiled in a way that seemed so very insincere as he walked Derek to the loft door. “Sure, sure - would I ever do anything else?”

“I’m not answering that. I don’t even remember and I know the answer.” Derek shook his head and rolled his eyes, letting himself out of the loft and trying to decide where to go next.


	5. Chapter 5

Derek wasn’t sure where he was headed, but he wandered enough to catch a familiar scent near the school, though a quick look around confirmed that Stiles’ jeep wasn’t around so he drifted towards her. She wasn’t human, which didn’t really go with what Peter had directed, but she seemed the most human of them. He cleared his throat when he was close enough, which had her looking up from her book, staring at him confused for a moment before smiling softly. “Are you looking for Scott?” 

He shook his head as he motioned towards the seat at the table across from her and she waved for him to sit, pushing her dark hair off her shoulder and smiling at him. “Not sure who I’m looking for. Maybe you I guess.” 

Kira laughed then covered up her mouth as her eyes went wide. “You’re serious? You don’t know me. I mean… not really. We’ve seen each other in passing, but that’s it.” 

“Did you ever meet me before - the real me, I mean?” he asked.

“Oh - not really. I mean - we were trapped in a house together once, but… I wouldn’t say we’d really talked or anything. Once or twice. You’d… been there.” She looked him up and down. “I wouldn’t have recognised you if Stiles hadn’t said this was you. You were, erm - taller? Broader. You had a beard.” She sounded like she was desperately trying to be very polite.

Derek smirked. “Lydia said I was more buff,” he told her, which made Kira blush and duck her head.

“I… guess.” Derek raised an eyebrow at her and watched her blush more. “Yes okay. More buff,” she said finally. “Really handsome really. If that’s your thing. Buff guys. Which isn’t...I mean it’s not...You’re...I’m...”

“Scott?” Derek finished for her and she let out a sigh of relief.

“Is it that obvious?” 

“To me, yes.” At Kira’s blank look, he added, “Werewolf.”

Kira sighed. “If it’s obvious to you, why’s it not obvious to him?”

“Stiles... mentioned that someone he’d cared about just died,” Derek said, carefully, well aware that it had been Scott’s ex and maybe Kira didn’t want to hear that Scott had apparently still cared.

Kira sighed and nodded. “I know. They weren’t together when it happened, but yeah. It’s hard not to worry or think that’s the issue.” She sighed softly, resting her chin in her hand.

“It’s hard to lose someone that means something to you. Makes it harder to open yourself up to that kind of thing again.”

Kira nodded slowly. “I know. I mean that was you and Stiles right? It’s just hard to be patient. Sometimes I’m sure he does and sometimes, not at all.”

“I don’t remember me and Stiles,” he reminded her. “I don’t remember you, or Scott, or Malia, or Lydia. The Peter I remember is different. But - give Scott some time and some understanding.”

“Oh that’s right,” Kira said. “Is that weird? Not remembering him? Them?”

Derek chuckled, though there was little humor in it. “Everything about this is weird. Imagine knowing that you are actually much older than you feel. That years have happened, none of which you remember. That everyone that you have loved is dead, or so far from the person you thought you knew, they’re almost strangers.”

Kira frowned, looking ashen for a long moment. “I’m sorry. I can’t...can’t even imagine that.” She bit at her lip, looking like she was searching for what to say next. “You know,” she said after a minute, sitting up straighter. “They really care about you. Stiles and Scott. They made this decision to go get you and no one would take no for an answer. It just was what it was. They kept saying ‘but it’s Derek’.” 

“I know. I know they do, even if what they found wasn’t what they expected. And I really appreciate you guys coming to find me. I just need to know how to get back to who I was.” Derek hated the idea really - willingly walking back into that kind of pain, but just because he didn’t remember it, didn’t mean it had never happened. Maybe even in some ways it would actually be better. The news of betrayal and tragedy was so fresh right now, maybe as older Derek the distance that time would bring would make it all easier to deal with.

She nodded, pushing her book forward and closer to him. “I was looking to see if I could find anything either. It’s not the same culture, but it’s all I’ve got. And considering people are coming up blank, I figure it couldn’t hurt. But… Well they’ll figure it out. They figured out what I was. What Stiles was when he wasn’t himself. And how he got that way. And how to get him back.” 

Derek quirked a smile. “Figuring out what you are isn’t hard. You have this… aura,” he said, gesturing toward her.

“You’re the only one who ever seems to be able to tell,” Kira said, giving him a shy little smile.

“My mom knew a lot of people and she was really big on us knowing what was out there. We traveled a lot - family vacations, really, but to different areas of the world, or to different cities where there were pockets of different types of beings. She made sure we knew how to identify and work with them. It was all part of her hope that the supernatural world would be able to live in peace and harmony with each other and with humans.”

“That - sounds really nice, actually. I guess - I guess she never taught you about any of this?”

Derek let out a dull laugh. “No - nothing about Aztec Gods. She would have figured that that kind of thing was long gone.”

“Right. Well, seems things don’t stay gone here,” Kira said shaking her head. “The thing that possessed Stiles? It’s something that my mother thought she had trapped ages ago. When she was my age.” She shook her head slowly. “Not to mention Kate.” 

Derek swallowed at the mention of Kate’s name. His instincts toward her may have changed, but he retained the memory of loving her and he had the new found knowledge of what the cost of that had been.

He was saved from having to answer though as Kira’s phone sounded, playing a complicated tone - some tune, which Derek didn’t recognise. She turned away a little as the call connected. “Hey Stiles,” she said, happily.

_“Hey Kira,”_ Stiles said, his voice clearly audible to Derek’s ears down the line. _“We need you to come help us look for Derek - he’s disappeared and I’ve looked everywhere. Seriously! Peter said that he was there earlier, but he’s gone now and the creepy moron had no clue where! He’s…”_

“He’s here,” Kira said, calmly, looking over at Derek, even as Stiles kept talking, the words coming faster and faster as Stiles worked himself up into a panic.

_“...And then I said that… Wait, what?”_

“He’s here,” Kira repeated. “Derek’s here.”

_“What is he doing there!?!”_

“Well I don’t know. He came up to talk to me. Stiles are you hyperventilating?” Kira looked concerned, face all screwed up in it. 

_“No! I’m having a damn panic attack! You keep him right…there… Don’t let him leave your sight. I’ll be there in two minutes...where are you?”_

“At the school.” 

_“Good. Do not let him move. Tell him to hold his breath until I get there.”_

Kira opened her mouth to answer and then looked at her phone, making a face before shrugging and setting it down. Stiles must have hung up on her. “You’re not supposed to breathe, but he’s on his way.” 

“Yeah, I heard.” Derek shook his head. 

“Um, well, I should warn you I think he’s a bit upset.” 

“Yeah, I heard that too.” This wasn’t going to go well. 

It wasn’t long until the sound of Stiles’ jeep could be heard as it careened into the parking lot - practically on two wheels by the sounds of things, and came to a screeching halt at the foot of the steps. Stiles practically fell out of the driver’s side, but kept on his feet and launched himself toward Derek, panting heavily as he near enough fell at his feet in his rush to get to him. Derek held him up, wide eyed and more than a little shocked, since Derek was clearly fine and he told Stiles so. “I just needed some space,” he added.

“No - no, it’s… We found something!” Stiles said, leaning over with one hand on his knee and the other against his chest as he got his breath back. He looked up at Derek, his hair falling into his eyes. “About you - about what she did. To you.”

“...And?” Derek asked, feeling his heartbeat pick up as he waited to hear what Stiles had to say.

“And, dude - we have to get you fixed. Like, have to. Because, if you’re still like this come the first day of spring - your heart’s going to explode. Like, literally, rip itself out of it’s chest. We don’t know how that works, exactly, but… apparently that’s a thing now. So, we have… three weeks and two days and then you’re… We have to figure this out.”

That wasn’t what Derek wanted to hear. His hand went to his chest, frowning more. “So how do we get me fixed?” 

Stiles sputtered then frowned. “I don’t have that answer yet.” He must have seen the way Derek’s face fell, because he immediately launched into more explanation. “I have a lot of ideas and I’ve read about a billion things that could work, but I’m not sure what does it exactly. There’s this whole legend of a young Tezcatlipoca impersonator that gets its heart ripped out and that’s you so we’re looking for how to get you to not be the sacrifice you know?” 

“Not being a sacrifice is good,” Derek agreed. One day he’d get good news from these guys. Maybe. It couldn’t always be some kind of news designed specifically - and now, apparently, literally - to rip his heart out. “So, what do we do?”

“Road trip,” Stiles told him. “Like, right now - no time like the present when you’ve got less than twenty five days til your heart explodes!” Stiles seemed to clue into the way that both Derek and Kira were staring at him. “There’s a museum down state that has a collection of Aztec stuff right now. Like, it’s the world’s best collection and it’s touring and it’s four hours away, which is a whole lot easier than going back to damn Mexico and doesn’t involve sneaking people with no possible way of getting any ID that anyone will believe over the border. Again. So - we’re going. Now. You, me and Scott.” Kira made a noise of protest. “And Kira, if you want to come I don’t think that Scott would actually know how to refuse you, but we’re leaving Malia behind. Apparently Lydia wants some…girl time, or…something. She said they had to talk and I really don’t want to know. So - they’re not coming and did I mention that we’re leaving and you guys are just standing there! Come on - let’s go!”

Kira moved first, reaching for her bag and the book she’d been reading, heading towards the jeep. She nudged Derek’s back with her elbow, which was enough to get him moving. He hurried closer to Stiles, catching his arm before Stiles could get to the jeep. He knew what Lydia wanted to talk to Malia about. It was likely what he’d asked her to talk to Malia about. “Stiles… about leaving…” Stiles shook his head and tried to pull his arm away.

“Just don’t do it again okay? I’m tired of you leaving when things get hard.” 

“I just needed some space. What happened…” 

“Shut up Derek. It’s fine. You’re allowed. We don’t have to talk about it. We don’t talk about it.” 

Derek opened his mouth to protest, but Stiles waved him away. “Just get in the car. We need to grab Scott and get you fixed.” When Stiles pulled at his arm again, Derek let it go, frowning as Stiles moved away jumping into the jeep, leaving Derek no other option but to follow.


	6. Chapter 6

Derek was quiet and withdrawn as he sat hunched in the front seat of the jeep, pretending to be looking out of the window, but actually watching Stiles’ reflection instead. Scott and Kira were lost in their own world on the back seat, talking quietly to each other. Stiles was concentrating on the road. Or, at least, that’s what he was pretending to exclusively do. The tension in the front of the vehicle could have been cut with a knife, however. Or possibly the katana, which Kira had insisted they stop to collect from her house before they hit the road. Why they’d need that at a museum was beyond Derek, but he didn’t push it. 

“Stiles,” he started when he really couldn’t bear it anymore, the silence, the way that Stiles seemed to be just downright miserable, the gap between them that was bigger than just the few feet from one side of the car to the other. 

“Stop,” Stiles ground out. “Don’t start. We’ll fix this, get you back before you get dead and hopefully you’ll forget all of it. And we can go back to the way we were.” He banged one hand on the steering wheel a little too hard and wound up shaking it like that might have hurt. “Fine. Perfect.” 

“And if I remember?” 

“Then we swear never to talk about it ever again and I can pretend you forgot.” 

“If that’s what you want,” Derek said, swallowing hard and going back to look out of the window. He got it - why Stiles would say that. There were too many issues in the way. The past that Derek couldn’t remember, but which existed all the same, hanging over their heads. Derek wanted to argue, to tell him no - that it didn’t have to be like that, but what did he know? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if made promises to Stiles and then, once they’d changed him back, he wasn’t able to keep them. How could he promise anything, ask for anything, when he didn’t ever truly know who he was? So, he said nothing, and just watched the road go past.

“It’s not even like it would work anyway!” Stiles exclaimed, seemingly out of nowhere. “It’s ridiculous! Me and you!”

Derek looked back at him, one eyebrow raised in confusion. “Is it?” 

“Only because you hated him for so long,” Scott said from the back, the exclamation too loud to ignore. “But I guess even you can get over that sort of thing.” 

Stiles jerked his head around to look at Scott for a moment then swung his eyes back to the road. “I don’t hate you,” he told Derek. “I did. But...I don’t.” 

“We know,” Scott added, rolling his eyes. 

Derek wanted to know why Stiles had hated him, but he was beginning to realize that it just didn’t matter. Either they would fix him and everything would go back to the way it was. Or he would die. He turned his face away from the others and tried to ignore the hurt and fear inside.

“You’re becoming more like him,” Stiles said, after another couple of miles. Derek didn’t acknowledge the comment. “You don’t talk as much. I can see you glaring out that window, as though the landscape’s personally offended you. You’re - you’re more like him.”

“I am him,” Derek growled, lowly.

Stiles shook his head. “You are...and you aren’t. He’s... He assumes the worst. And he’s self sacrificing. You aren’t that yet.”

“How do you know that? I might be. We just haven’t been anywhere that might need me to be self-sacrificing,” Derek said, somewhat petulantly. 

“Oh so you’ve got a death wish too? Great. Then you’re just fine,” Stiles snapped back. “Maybe we shouldn’t even be bothering with helping you then. Just let this play out.”

“Why are you helping me then?” Derek asked. It was a reflex and he wished he could take the question back the moment it left his mouth. He looked away, ashamed and full of regret.

Stiles started to retort making a noise, but he must have looked over and seen his face. Stiles' shoulders sagged and he reached between them, touching his arm. "Because I don't like it. I don't like when you get like that." 

Derek leaned the side of his head against the seat, watching Stiles. "Thank you," he said, after a moment or two. His voice was soft, an almost intimate moment between them as Scott and Kira politely ignored them.

"You don't need to thank me, Derek," Stiles replied, equally softly.

Derek reached for Stiles' hand and held it, lacing their fingers together. It might have been too much but he couldn't help himself. "Yeah I do. I think you're the only one that cares still." 

"Hey!" The protest came from Scott, but Derek didn't really care because Stiles squeezed his hand back and didn't try and pull away.

\-----

Stiles had parked the jeep a few blocks away from the museum and they’d found a door around back. “This place has an alarm,” Stiles said, looking at the building. “But we could cut the power.” 

“How many heist movies and shows have you actually seen at this point?” Scott asked, making a face. 

“Too many. But that’s helping us here now, so no more mocking me for watching White Collar.” He looked up then around. “I think we could…” he started, but the lights on the street and the building went out before he could finish the statement. He looked around for a moment then spotted Derek, jogging back to them. 

“Will that work?” he asked with a grin and Stiles had to bite back a laugh. 

“Yeah. Yeah that will do it.” Stiles shook his head then shifted forward to pick the lock on the door. 

Derek stood behind Stiles, possibly a little too close, but Stiles didn’t seem to be complaining about it as he bent to work the lock. “Have you done this much before?” Derek asked, peering over his shoulder.

“A few times,” Stiles said with a frown. “Though usually it’s a less complicated lock. It’s a lot easier to break into my dad’s desk or classrooms at school.” 

Derek glanced at Scott. “You know, we could just break a window,” he suggested, standing back to look at the upper floors, in case someone had actually left one open in a place they’d thought would be inaccessible.

“You know I can do this and I’m still here,” Stiles said twisting his wrist with the lock picks to try and get the door open.

“We could. He can’t,” Scott said pointing to Stiles. “I’ve seen him try. But we can.”

Derek considered that, then nodded. “I’ll stay here with Stiles - why don’t you go see if you can find another way in,” he suggested to Scott. He was shocked at how easy the suggestion, which was really only just shy of an order, came to him. Scott clearly wasn’t his alpha - and Derek was stronger than he’d thought he was. Still, it came as a real confidence boost when Scott simply agreed and disappeared into the night with Kira.

“Maybe this is pointless and you’re turning back to yourself on your own,” Stiles said, looking back at Scott’s retreating form then up at Derek.

“Three weeks. Two days. Let’s not risk it,” Derek said, his back to Stiles as he kept an eye out for possible danger.

“Definitely turning back,” Stiles muttered.

“What? Why?” Derek asked, surprised at the comment.

“Well, you’ve gone through this whole ‘actually talking’ phase, and now you’re back to short words and shorter sentences. Multiple syllables are your friend.”

“I’m keeping a look out, Stiles,” Derek told him, with a sigh.

“For what?” Stiles asked as he twisted his hands again and the lock clicked open. He looked up with a grin, the pulled the door open. “Just have to get you saying my name like I’m the most annoying creature on the planet and we’ll be back to normal.” He sounded jovial about it, but the grin didn’t quite make it to his eyes after he said it. “After you.”

Derek looked over at Stiles, then raised his brows, smiling and not trying to deny he was actually impressed as he walked through the doors. “I _was_ looking out for us actually getting caught, but okay - your plan was better than mine,” he admitted.

They walked down the central hallway together, each step echoing in the emptiness. “I could never think you were the most annoying creature on the planet,” Derek told him, eventually.

“Never say never,” Stiles replied, plucking a folded paper map from a stand and opening it up. “We need to go... Down there and then right.”

Derek frowned a little wondering if his real self did think that, that Stiles was annoying. It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t comment on it, just pulled at Stiles’ arm to get them going. “Then let’s go. I’m guessing eventually they’ll notice the power is out.”

“Lucky for us we’re not here to steal anything.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what we’re going to find,” Derek said as they walked quickly through the dinosaur exhibition and Derek decided that he absolutely had to keep hold of Stiles’ arm to stop him gawking at the stegosaurus. The fact he didn’t actually let go once they were through and walking towards the South American Civilization part of the museum was something neither of them mentioned. Just like they weren’t going to talk about the way he’d held Stiles’ hand for a big part of the drive. 

“You never realize how big they are until you’re staring at their bones,” Stiles was babbling about the dinosaurs like he was five and that was the greatest thing ever. Luckily for them both, since the exhibit was traveling, they didn’t need Stiles to navigate off the map and they could just follow the signs until they were where they meant to be. Stiles turned in a circle twice in the room, taking it all in and then moving off to one side, pulling Derek with him. “Come on, over here,” he said until he was stopping them in front of a large rock of sorts, gilded around the edges and smoothed so the surface shined.

“What is it?”

“Obsidian,” Stiles told him. “It’s a type of rock, but I think it might be what we’re looking for. See.” Stiles pointed to the sign beneath the exhibit.

“ _Tezcatilipoca_ “ Derek read. “ _Literally ‘smoking mirror’ - the name refers to the black obsidian mirror used by Aztec magicians to descry the future. Tezcatilipoca was the patron of warriors. Legend has it that he was the original sun knocked out of the sky and turned into a jaguar by his enemy, Quetzalcoatl. Tezcatilipoca was a trickster god who associated with witches, thieves and evildoers. An all powerful deity who could give or take life._ Stiles I don’t see...” Derek trailed off as he looked into the mirror.

“What - what don’t you see?” Stiles asked.

“Me,” Derek said, shocked. “I...” He pointed at his reflection, and an older guy, several inches taller than he was pointed back. Derek felt his smooth face, whilst his reflection ran its hand over a neatly trimmed beard. “I see the me you know.”

Stiles looked away from the signs and information and Derek could see his reflection in the black stone as well. He must have seen what Derek saw because his eyes softened slightly, his mouth changing for a second before he bit his lip and nodded. “Right well, that means that much works at least.”

Derek couldn’t get over his reflection, turning to look more at Stiles. “That’s him. He’s the...” The version of Derek that Stiles wanted.

“Not why we’re here,” Stiles said, moving away from Derek.

“I look so different,” Derek breathed, still stuck looking into the mirror.

“Not so different - I can see the similarities,” Stiles said, but he was already half way across the room, and Derek wondered how much it hurt, seeing the real him trapped in a reflection.

“Like what?” Derek asked, not really thinking it through and wishing he hadn’t because he could see the way Stiles’ shoulders tensed and hear his heartbeat race for a second.

“Your eyes are the same,” Stiles wound up saying. “And when you smile it’s familiar. You smiling is kind of rare, but it’s familiar.”

“I don’t smile?” Derek asked, then immediately felt dumb. He could immediately think of a million reasons why he wouldn’t smile. He cast one final look at his older reflection, then hurried after Stiles.

“Not really. Not unless you want something,” Stiles said, not catching where he hadn’t meant to to ask it. “There was once where you laid it flat out on some lady deputy and she just caved. I hated you for a good few minutes.” Stiles was looking at the cases, looking for their solution.

“Because I got her to cave, or because I wasn’t smiling at you?” Derek asked, unable to resist the flirtatious comment.

Stiles froze, looking back at Derek then shook his head with a smile. “Both, you jerk. You aren’t supposed to know it’s both.” 

Derek grinned. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have told me...”

“Are you encouraging me to lie to you now?” Stiles shot back, but it was light-hearted and Derek felt warm inside at the realization that they were full-on flirting now. He didn’t want to stop. He just wanted to keep this going, back and forth all night until one of them broke and they dumped the stupid idea that they could never be together.

Derek put on his best serious face and shook his head, drifting closer to Stiles. “No. I’d never. You can tell me anything. Especially that parts where you think I’m hot.” His smile broke through at the end though, not able to keep from laughing a little.

Stiles rolled his eyes and shoved at Derek’s shoulder, but he was smiling himself, maybe even blushing. It was hard to tell in the dark room. “Shut up, you know you’re hot. You don’t need me telling you.”

Derek dropped his head and looked at Stiles through his brows. “But I like it when you do,” he said, trying to deepen his voice slightly, the way he supposed that the man in the mirror must sound. He didn’t expect Stiles to laugh at him for it.

“Oh my god, just stop. Really? That’s like your Batman voice or something. It’s ridiculous.”

Derek made a face. “It’s not ridiculous.” He did his best to swallow the minute flail and panic that he’d had something really good going on and he’d messed it up trying to be something he wasn’t.

Stiles just laughed more, but the grin he had lit up his whole face in the best kind of way. “It is...don’t make that face.” Stiles pointed at him and took a step back and bit his lip in a way Derek was sure was unintentional. “We talked about that sad puppy face. That’s cheating.”

“It is,” Derek agreed, his expression not changing as he stepped forward. “I’m not above cheating - especially not against hot guys who call me ridiculous.” He felt a stab of triumph as Stiles didn’t move, allowing Derek to crowd into his personal space. He took that as silent permission, and reached for Stiles. He was about to lean in and kiss him when there was a clear cough from across the room.

Derek and Stiles both spun to face the noise, only to find Scott and Kira standing in the entryway to the exhibit. “Seriously guys? You couldn’t, say, wait til we were finished breaking into the museum to get it on?”

“We were not-” Stiles cut himself off, looking down at his hand that was definitely twisted in Derek’s shirt and pulled it away. “I found it,” he said instead, marching a few steps towards the case he’d been looking in when they’d started their little flirting banter.

“Found what?” both Scott and Derek asked at the same time.

Stiles flashed them both a look, then pointed into the case. “Our answer. It’s a spell. I guess. Do we do spells?” he asked then shook his head. “But this is what I was reading about. It should... fix him.”

“We do spells now,” Derek said, not pausing as he thrust his fist through the glass and pulled out the tablet inside. “So much for not stealing anything. Let’s go,” he said, turning and walking off. “Get the mirror,” he called back.

Stiles made a strangled noise then waved at the mirror for Scott to get it. “I was seriously going to take a picture or something...” he called after Derek. “Or commit a felony, whatever.”

“Don't have time,” Derek said. A picture ran the risk of missing detail. Far better to have the original. Stiles worried too much about legality.

“Exactly the same sometimes,” Stiles said as he caught up, already getting out his car keys. 

\-----

“This makes no sense,” Derek growled, turning the stone tablet over, in case there was more written on the back.

“It was hardly going to be written in English, dude,” Scott pointed out.

“We’ll need to translate it when we get it back - and then get rid of it before someone, say, finds us with a _stolen ancient artifact_ ,” Stiles said, making Derek roll his eyes, because Stiles just couldn’t let that one little point drop, could he.

“At least say that you know we have the right thing here,” Derek asked.

“We have the right thing. My research says that what’s written on that tablet is a spell - instructions for some kind of loophole in the whole ‘becoming a sacrifice to Tezcatilipoca thing,” Stiles said.

In the back of the car, Scott pulled a confused face. “I still don’t get why Kate would do this. What’s the point.”

“Other than being really annoying? Apparently, giving a sacrifice to Tezcatilipoca gains his favor. There’s like a laundry list of benefits of having him on your side. Just that nobody much does it these days. Apparently, we just all attract the ‘human sacrifice’ types. Or, you know, he does. Terrible taste in women. Really, really awful,” Stiles said.

Derek leveled a look at Stiles. “My taste can’t be all that bad.” 

“Well...” Scott started. 

“It is. Tragic. Twice, you’ve had murderous girlfriends and oh, wait, one didn’t stay dead and is starting over all again. Our luck Ms. Blake will show up back at school the moment we get you fixed and quote inaccurate poetry at us, while really day dreaming about your chest and eyebrows.” 

Derek’s eyes widened. “The what with the who - huh?” he asked, blinking rapidly. “Who the hell is Ms. Blake and why - murderous? I...” _Don’t have anyone else to lose_. Derek couldn’t voice that thought, but he was mentally cataloguing everyone he’d ever loved. So far, every time they told him about people dying, they had some kind of connection to him.

“Ms. Blake. Former emissary to a member of a particularly nasty pack of alphas who had tried to kill her, well, around the time when you were actually the age you are now. They failed. She recovered. It’s a whole other bloody revenge story, really. Only, she decided to do it by sacrificing twelve innocent people in groups of three. All while masquerading as an innocent English teacher. Who you boned. So, I stand by my assessment that you have terrible taste in women,” Stiles said, not taking his eyes off the road.

Derek wanted Stiles to be joking, but he could tell that he was clearly _not_ and it left him groaning and sinking into his seat more. “Why do I even bother? Twelve people?”

“Been asking myself that question for at least a year now,” Stiles agreed, shaking his head slowly. “Yeah. One of which was my friend. And I thought I was on the list for potential sacrifices as well.” For some reason that made Scott snicker a little, but beyond a glare in the rearview mirror, Stiles plowed forward. “She almost killed my dad and Scott’s mom, but thankfully I was there to save the day on that one.”

Derek felt sick as he slumped back against the seat. “Fuck - no wonder you don’t want to get involved with me,” he breathed. “I’d probably... curse you. You’d be... possessed by some evil demon thing and go on a killing spree.” Because Derek couldn’t actually imagine Stiles turning out to be evil any other way.

Belatedly, he realised the jeep had gone very still and quiet, and he looked between Scott, Stiles, and Kira. “...What?”

Stiles shifted, squaring his shoulders and his jaw and after a moment of chewing on his lower lip he shrugged like it was nothing and the tension in his body wasn’t obvious. “Been there, done that,” he said, voice devoid of any emotion.

Derek stared at Stiles for a long while, but the other boy didn’t say anything so he turned his attention to Scott. Scott seemed to hold on to his resolve to let Stiles talk about it, but he eventually broke. “It was an ancient Japanese spirit. It got let out of where it was locked away at it was in this crazy serial killer and it accidentally got transferred to Stiles.”

“Remember how I told you I tried to blow you up?” Stiles said, fake humor and amusement in his tone as he looked over at Derek, eyes a touch wild. “That was that.”

“Oh.” Derek fell silent, his mind reeling. He had absolutely no idea what to say to that.

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. I got better though,” Stiles said, trying and mostly failing to make light of it.

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Derek snapped without meaning to, but it got Stiles to look over at him, one eyebrow raised.

“I know. But shockingly enough it wasn’t your fault. So don’t stress over it.”

Derek looked ahead, out of the windshield and into the darkness. “One thing,” he said, his voice full of tension. “Just tell me one thing that’s not entirely fucked up.”

Stiles looked back at Scott, then Derek before speaking. “Becoming a werewolf made Scott really good at lacrosse?”

“Your certainty is inspiring,” Derek deadpanned. He slumped against the window. “Maybe I’m better off just letting my heart explode.”

“And let Kate win?” Stiles asked, aghast.

“Yeah, and dude - I mean, if you die, then Kate’s gonna have a _god_ on her side. Saving you might just be the key to saving the entire world. I don’t want to deal with a psychopathic Argent with the blessing of a deity.”

“Good use of words there, Scott,” Stiles commented. Derek just scowled.

“I might have planned part of it,” Scott admitted which just made Stiles grin.

“Of course you did.” Stiles turned his attention back to Derek. “Look, everything’s fucked up, sure, but you don’t give up. You never have. You run, head first into these situations that should get you killed and you come out alive and still ready to fight. So fine, it sucks, but you don’t suck. You survive.”

“While everyone else around me dies.”

“Well...yeah I guess so. But Scott and I could say the same. And...you've helped people. You really have.”

Derek didn’t answer, instead pulling off the sweatshirt he was wearing. He balled it up and used it as a pillow as he leaned against the window. “Wake me up when we get to Beacon Hills,” he said. Closing his eyes, he knew he wouldn’t sleep, but maybe he could block out the world for a while.


	7. Chapter 7

“Are you really going to lean over my shoulder through this whole thing?” Stiles asked, leaning back in his chair to look up at Derek . He had books spread across his desk and close to eighteen tabs open on his computer and tons of scrapped pieces of paper from where he’d been trying to translate the tablet. “Don’t you have a loft you can get back to?”

“Peter’s there,” Derek said, figuring no other explanation was necessary. ”The tablet’s here. I’m staying.”

“Yes, but I’m here,” Stiles said, abandoning the tablet and turning in his chair to look at Derek. “And you’re making me nervous.”

Confusion and hurt flickered across Derek’s face as his eyebrows bunched. “Couldn’t I just... sit over here in the corner?” he asked. He really didn’t want to leave, and the thought that Stiles was going to insist he did was even less appealing.

Stiles though, laughed at that. “Alright Miguel,” he teased despite the blank look that Derek gave him. “I’ve got some shirts you can change into too.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I know,” Stiles said, holding his side. “I know.” He let his laughter subside before speaking again. “I’m going to figure this out.” 

Derek scowled, not appreciating the way that Stiles wasn’t bothering to actually explain what he was clearly missing. He didn’t leave though, instead going and sitting down in the corner as he said he would. “What do you have so far?” he asked.

“Partial translations? I’m not even sure that this is right. It’s... confusing. I’m sure that this word here is ‘love’ and there’s another one up here that’s either ‘double’ or ‘alternative’.”

“What on earth does love that to do with it?” Derek asked, voice terse and annoyed, but he hadn’t meant for it to come out that way.

“Beyond being a song from the eighties?” Stiles joked and Derek scowled again. “Fine, fine. I have no idea. I know I can’t see straight and I’m regretting not taking Latin. Not that it would help, but at least I would have some experience with dead languages.” Stiles rubbed at his face and Derek couldn’t help but frown at him.

“When did you sleep last?” he asked, trying to sound casual, still looking at the papers that Stiles had laid out on his desk like he could help.

Stiles waved a hand, brushing it off as he shook his head. “Sleep is overrated,” he said, offhand. 

“No. It’s not,” Derek replied. It took him no time at all to cross back over to Stiles. Shutting the laptop screen, he pulled Stiles up out of his chair and led him determinedly over to the bed. Pulling the covers back, he all but levered a protesting Stiles into bed.

“I have research!”

“Which will wait until morning, Stiles.”

“Not really. You're the one that's going to die remember?” Stiles got a hold of Derek's shirt, pulling at him in an attempt to get up, but it as Derek pushed him back all it did was pull Derek closer. “Just because you're stronger...”

“In three weeks time - and if you collapse from exhaustion between then and now, we’ll lose even more time,” Derek said as he stooped to pull off Stiles’ sneakers.

“I’m not going to...oh my god stop undressing me just to tuck me in,” Stiles insisted, squirming his feet away from Derek and kicking out of the shoe Derek hadn’t gotten to on his own.

“Should I undress you for another reason?” Derek asked, purposefully flirtatiously, knowing that Stiles would latch onto that rather than trying to fight his way back to his research. Sitting on the side of the bed, he reached for Stiles’ belt.

Stiles made a noise, like he hadn’t expected things to change or for Derek’s hands to be where they were. He looked legitimately torn, looking past Derek at his desk, eyeing it and the work he could be doing, but then his eyes fell back on Derek and he seemed to have made up his mind. Derek guessed that Stiles knew it was a trick, but he didn’t fight it either. “Yes and no,” he said finally.

“Which one’s yes and which one’s no?” Derek asked, pulling Stiles’ belt slowly from the loops and dropping it onto the floor behind them as he started on the button of his jeans. 

Stiles let out a shaking breath, but he didn’t stop Derek. “Yes, you should, and no, you probably shouldn’t. I shouldn’t...We…”

Derek undid the zipper and tugged at Stiles’ jeans, watching his face all the time. When Stiles didn’t actually protest, he pulled them down, leaving Stiles in boxers and his t-shirt. All the while, Stiles watched him, wide-eyed as he chewed nervously on his bottom lip. “The idea-” Derek said, lifting Stiles’ feet and laying him out full length on the bed. “-was for you to get. some. sleep.”

Stiles let out a whimper, his face falling as he clearly realized that Derek wasn’t intending to seduce him. Seeing Stiles laid out in bed that way, Derek figured that _not_ acting on that was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Worse than that though, it felt oddly familiar. As if he’d been in a place where he’d been close, maybe not this close, but close and had to pull back. Put space between them. Stiles’ shoulders slumped and he nodded, curling up on one side, facing away from Derek.

Derek took that as a sign that Stiles was giving in, going to try and made his own move to get up, but before he could, Stiles’ hand was curled around his arm, pulling him closer. “You should sleep too.”

Derek stilled, his heart racing as he wondered whether Stiles was actually suggesting what he seemed to be suggesting. “I will,” he said, sounding breathless. The words caught in his throat as Stiles looked over his shoulder at him and tugged on his arm. Whilst the other man said nothing, the purpose was clear. Derek swallowed and then nodded. Extracting himself from the hold for a moment, he shucked out of his own jeans and clambered into bed behind Stiles. Edging up against him, he slipped an arm around Stiles’ waist, spooning him from behind. Derek had no memory of ever doing this before. He had never actually cuddled, not with anyone. “Is this… okay?” he asked, nervously.

Stiles shifted, as if trying to find just the right spot to lay in, before he nodded. “Yeah it's okay. Okay with you?” He sounded tired, but maybe a little distant.

“Yeah, totally okay,” Derek blurted, fighting an urge to pressed his nose into the back of Stiles’ neck and just breathe him in. He lost the battle against that urge when Stiles moved to interlace their fingers where Derek had laid a hand over Stiles’ stomach. With a quiet groan, Derek dropped his head, burying his face into Stiles’ neck and just inhaling - warmth and the slightly spicy smell of Stiles, overlaid with the scent of exhaustion and stress and threading its way through all of that, the unmistakable smell of arousal.

Stiles gasped, his hand tightening on Derek’s. It felt too much like permission for more and Derek couldn’t stop himself from giving in, mouth and tongue lightly against Stiles’ pulse. Now it was Stiles turn to groan softly tilting his head to give him more access.

Derek went slowly, slipping a hand under Stiles’ shirt, stroking up and down the soft skin of his torso, as he lathed attention on the column of his neck. He was waiting for the freak out. For the same thing that had happened before. For Stiles to make that connection again. To move away and tell him he was too young. Or too old. Or both.

Stiles let out the slightest of whimpers, as if reading Derek’s mind. His fingers tightened on Derek’s arm, not pulling him away but clearly faltering between want and reality. “What if you don’t remember?” he murmured, voice thick. “What if you do?”

“I want to remember,” Derek told him, nuzzling at Stiles’ neck and laying tiny butterfly kisses to his skin. “I want to remember, I want to tell you it’s okay. I want to add to this all the things that I _must_ have felt for you.” Because Derek couldn’t imagine that this had conjured itself out of thin air, the way he was feeling now.

Stiles sighed, shaking his head slightly, but not enough to deter Derek from what he was doing. “I don’t know which is worse. You not remembering and me having to remember it alone or...you remembering and turning me away.” Derek tightened his grip on Stiles, pulling him closer.

“I just said, there’s no way I don’t feel this way about you.”

“I can hope,” Stiles murmured. “But it’s been a while. And nothing.”

“That’s ‘cause I’m an idiot,” Derek breathed into his skin, causing Stiles to hiccup a small laugh. “That’s why I want to remember - so I have no excuse. I can’t pretend that I don’t feel this way.”

“Which way?” Stiles asked, tentatively, as though he were afraid of the answer. The way that his heart leapt up and the scent of nervousness in the air betrayed the fact that he was just that.

“That you are just… right.”

Stiles’ breath came out in a shudder and maybe he nodded, but it was hard to tell. “Right?”

“Yeah, right. The way you smell, the way you feel, all of it. I was drawn to you when I didn’t even know who you were.”

Stiles chuckled a little desperately. “You know that sounds kinda creepy, right?”

“Only if you’re not a werewolf,” Derek answered, but it made him pull back a little as he lifted his lips from Stiles’ skin.

“No - I didn’t mean… I don’t want you to stop.”

“You were meant to be getting some sleep,” Derek pointed out.

Stiles rolled before Derek could move away again, facing him. “I can sleep when I’m dead. Or you’re you again and not... _here_.” He pulled at Derek's shirt, leaning up just enough to kiss him.

That was all the permission and encouragement Derek needed and he rolled them until he was on top of Stiles, deepening the kiss, only pulling back to say, “I’m never not going to be here.”

Stiles moaned as Derek kissed him desperately, and this time it was Stiles that pulled away. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he said as he pulled at Derek’s shirt, seemingly trying to claw it off him.

“I’m not,” Derek insisted. “I’m not going anywhere Stiles.” Not now. He couldn’t now. He knew what this was like. He had to remember. Had to. He pulled back enough to get his shirt off, dropping it off the bed and then tugged at Stiles’ shirt until they were both shirtless. Derek took a moment to drink in the guy below him and then he dropped his head, sucking hard against his collarbone.

Stiles groaned, arching up beneath him. Derek, what…?” he asked, sounding more needy than really questioning.

“I can’t forget, but if I do, there’s going to be proof,” he growled, moving to layer another mark next to the first, which was already blooming on Stiles’ pale skin. “Something I can see, something I won’t be able to deny. I’m gonna mark you, and keep you marked until the day you fix me.”

Stiles made a noise that barely sounded like Stiles, needy and desperate, and Derek felt it his fingers twist into Derek’s hair, keeping him right where he was. Derek was more than okay with that, biting at his skin enough to darken the mark, but not hurt Stiles in any way. He shifted again, going for another spot, but stopped at the small scar there. It wasn’t anything huge, just a little white line across already pale skin, but it gave Derek pause. He had trouble thinking of Stiles scarred and it was enough to get him to pull back, ignoring the way Stiles whimpered. 

Upon further inspection, Derek realized there were more. Nothing huge or blatant, but his arms, his torso, all of him had similar little marks, scratches that hadn’t healed properly and left tiny little scars along his skin. There was even a ghost of a line across his stomach, jagged along his abdomen, but it seemed like it might have been fading. He ran his fingers across it, and Stiles sighed, though not one of the happy sighs he’d had moments before. “It cut me open when it possessed me,” Stiles explained. “I’m not sure if it was real or not, or if I was ever actually hurt, but well...the mark’s still there.”

“There’s more.” Derek looked up at Stiles, but Stiles was staring at the ceiling. 

“I’m human. My best friends aren’t. Sort of an inevitable side effect of trying to save everyone.” 

“If you’re the one that’s most easily hurt, why are you the one doing the saving?” Derek asked, trailing his fingers along the abdomen scar, his brows slightly furrowed as he tilted his head to the side.

“Because I have the best plans,” Stiles said, half joking, half serious. 

Derek gave him a look, but Stiles ignored it, pushing up to pull him into another kiss. It was an obvious ploy to distract him, Derek saw that, but he let Stiles have it, let himself go with the kiss, wrapping his arms around Stiles and burying a hand in his hair.

“Can I stay tonight?” Derek asked, when he finally pulled back, slipping off Stiles to curl up into his side, resting his head on Stiles’ shoulder and looking up at him. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Stiles smiled, softly amused. “Der - I’m not hurt now,” he reminded the werewolf as Derek nuzzled into the crook of his neck, making Stiles hum his enjoyment.

“Okay, then I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to go back to the loft, with someone who killed my sister and where nothing feels familiar. I want to stay here, with you.”

Stiles nodded slowly. “Yeah, I want you here too.” 

“Good,” Derek said, not able to fight the smile that broke out on his features, but he did half hide it against Stiles’ chest. 

\------

Derek woke up reaching for Stiles, but there was no one there. He frowned, taking a moment to breathe in the mingling of their scents in the sheets before sitting up. Stiles was right where Derek should have guessed he would be, back at his desk, laptop open and tablet in front of him. The sun was just barely coming in the window which meant it wasn’t long after dawn and Stiles had a look like he’d been where he was for a while. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed, still in his boxers, and he’d curled up, knees up against his chest while he read something on the screen. He looked smaller and fragile, despite the way the muscles in his shoulders and back stretched and curved. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Derek said as he crawled to the end of the bed, reaching for Stiles. 

“I slept,” Stiles said, glancing over his shoulder, then bending back to his work. “Then I got up.”

Derek sighed and got up out of the bed, moving to behind Stiles and bending over him, slipping his arm around Stiles’ waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. “You got any further?” he asked, resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to talk Stiles into coming back to bed anytime soon.

Stiles leaned into him and nodded. “Yeah actually. Starting to get somewhere.” He didn’t sound happy about the accomplishment though. 

“Is it not what we need?” Derek asked, fear running through him. He didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when Stiles this close was an option.

“No. It’s what we need.” Stiles reached for the piece of paper he’d been translating on, holding it up so Derek could read it. 

_Tezcatlipoca the trickster _________ sacrifice. _________interesting _________ required. The sacrifice may offer to Tezcatlipoca an alternative. The alternative _________ Tezcatlipoca _________ the sacrifice _________, to turn the god’s head. The alternative_________ innocent, but must be one of Tezcatlipoca’s own. The alternative _________ beloved of the sacrifice._

_For the alternative to replace the sacrifice, both the sacrifice and the alternative _________ Tezcatlipoca’s mirror. The ritual _________ Tlazoleotl _________ performed _________. The sacrifice _________ returned _________ the alternative will take his place._

_This will please the trickster god._

Derek read it twice before turning to Stiles. “We have to find an alternative?” he asked. 

“Yeah looks that way,” Stiles said with a sigh. “And this part about the beloved…” He trailed off and ran his hand over his face. “I don’t...I need to finish this before we get ahead of ourselves, but…” 

Derek pulled him closer. “You can do it. I know you can.” 

“But what about what it says,” Stiles started, but Derek kissed him to keep him from saying more. 

“Figure it out. Then we’ll work out the rest.” There was nothing to be gained from jumping to conclusions. Especially not when Derek had a sinking feeling about what it all may mean. Surely it couldn’t happen that way. Surely life just couldn’t be that unfair.


	8. Chapter 8

“I found Tlazolteotl!” Kira declared, the first of them to speak for well over an hour. It was like some weird version of a study group, only instead of homework, they were all pouring over information on Aztec mythology in Stiles’ living room.

Stiles and Derek were sitting side by side on the couch, Stiles leaning over his laptop, chewing on the end of a pen in between making scrawled notes, while Derek read through the latest of a pile of books that Kira and Scott had picked up from the Beacon Hills Public Library on their way over. Scott was sitting on the floor on the other side of the coffee table, going over the notes Stiles had already made, whilst Kira sat indian style, curled up in an armchair with her own laptop. Malia had claimed the spot on the other side of Stiles and she kept looking over at Stiles, as though she was about to ask something, only every time she seemed to get there, Lydia would cough lightly and give her a significant look and Malia would get this wounded look and just droop. Derek kind of felt sorry for her, but they had more important things to worry about right now. Like how to make him not die.

After Stiles’s initial breakthrough, they’d reached a grinding halt. Everything they thought they could chase down had just resulted in a load of dead ends. Kira’s declaration had been their first bit of positive news in three days.

“Apparently,” Kira continued, once she was sure that she had people’s attention and wouldn’t be speaking to herself. “Tlazoteotl is the Aztec goddess of filth.”

“They had a goddess of _filth_?” Lydia questioned, screwing her nose up at the thought.

“They were a culture where human sacrifice was a thing,” Scott pointed out.

“What’s filth got to do with a jaguar god?” Stiles asked, sounding frustrated enough that Derek quietly reached for his hand. Stiles didn’t pull away and Derek squeezed softly.

“Well, this says that Tlazolteotl was associated with witchcraft and was a go between for Tezcatlipoca. She was the goddess of filth, but it seems her role was actually to do with purification.”

“That makes more sense,” Derek mused.

“Yes, right - no, it does,” Stiles said, thrusting his laptop to one side and rifling through his notes until he found the scrap of paper he was looking for. He scrambled from his seat on the couch, across to Lydia and thrust the paper at her. “Lydia - this symbol, here. You thought it was ‘ritual’. Could it actually be ‘spell’? That’s what we were working off first, but then we thought that that was wrong - now, I’m thinking maybe not.”

Lydia looked at the paper, far more cool and collected than Stiles was. Raising her head, she shrugged a shoulder. “Sure, it could be. Not that it really would make a difference. In that context, the two words would be interchangeable,” she pointed out.

“No, not - because the syntax is off. ‘Ritual’ would move this word here and ‘spell’ would mean that…”

Lydia suddenly seemed to catch on to what Stiles meant and she grabbed the paper from him, staring at it, then starting to fill in blanks with a pencil. “Yes, yes - that’s… Okay, I think it reads: _For the alternative to replace the sacrifice, both the sacrifice and the alternative must appear together before Tezcatlipoca’s mirror. The spell set forth by Tlazoleotl must be performed over the pair. The sacrifice will be returned to what he was and the alternative will take his place._ “

“Which means we need an alternative,” Stiles said, pointing to where on the paper she’d written. “Someone beloved. Someone like Tezcatilipoca. We have the mirror. Just the spell and… who takes Derek’s place.” Stiles didn’t mean to, it was obvious in the way he moved, but his fingers were pushing at the bruise that Derek had left on his skin. The marks he’d made to remind his older self.

Lydia looked up at him, watching Stiles closely. “Have you two…” she started but Derek cut her off.

“No one said it has to be-”

“Who else?” Stiles asked, quietly, as if he had already decided his own fate.

“Stiles, if it comes down to that, then no. Just no!” Derek proclaimed, jumping to his feet and stalking over to stand toe to toe with Stiles.

“Then, what - you’ll let yourself _die_?” Stiles exclaimed.

“Yes!”

“I already told you, I’m not letting that happen,” Stiles insisted.

“So what? You get to die instead? How is that fair?”

“It is what it is. They need you!”

“They need you too!”

“Did anyone else realize that they were...” Malia asked.

“It was only a matter of time, sweetie,” Lydia said, offhand, as she checked her nails.

“Unfortunately,” Scott agreed, with a resigned sigh.

“What? How? When? Stiles!”

“It’s not… I mean it is and it’s fine,” Stiles was pressing his fingers into that spot again and Derek knew it was making the bruise darker.

“It’s not fine. You aren’t doing this. I won’t let you,” Derek growled.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Lydia said, abruptly giving up on her nails and placing herself between Stiles and Derek, a hand in each of their chests. “As cute as your whole ‘I’ll die for you, no, no, I’ll die for _you!_ ‘ routine is, you’re both forgetting something. Whoever the replacement sacrifice is, they have to be ‘one of Tezcatilipoca’s own’. Now, from what I’ve been reading, the kinds that identified with this particular god would be thieves, witches and, well, your general evil types. Not you, Stiles.”

Stiles shook his head. “But I am. I was,” he insisted, which had Lydia turning full on him.

“No. No. You’re not. What happened wasn’t you. I was there. I was around it and it wasn’t you.” She punctuated the last few words with a perfectly manicured nail stabbed into his chest.

“Yeah, man,” Scott agreed. “You weren’t the nogitusune. It had you trapped in your head. Lydia and I should know. I mean, we went in to get you out and everything. It had you locked in that white room, sitting on the stump of the nemeton, playing Go. It locked you inside your own mind so that it could use your body. That doesn’t make you evil. If you’d have been evil, it wouldn’t have needed to do that. You would have just gone along with what it wanted you to do without it needing to get rid of you.”

“He did it for me.” Malia’s voice surprised everyone, and they turned to her. “He did it to save me. So the crazy guy didn’t kill me.” She seemed confused at all the staring and shrugged. “I’m just saying - he did it for me. Stiles isn’t evil. He’s the best person I know.”

Stiles was quiet for a long moment and Derek wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around him, but settled for just taking his hand lightly. Stiles swallowed back whatever he might have been feeling or thinking and looked at them. “Then who else?”

Everyone turned to Derek, like he might have an answer.

“Everyone else I loved is dead,” Derek pointed out, not voicing the additional _and I wouldn’t let them anyway._ That should be obvious, and he didn’t want to find out it wasn’t.

Now it was Stiles’ turn to reach for Derek, holding on to his arm. Derek could all but hear Malia make a jealous noise behind him, but he ignored it.

“Well...not everyone,” Lydia said, tilting her head the way she did when she was thinking. “What about Kate?”

Stiles pulled back at that, as if he knew what came next. Derek frowned, struggling internally. She was right. Part of him did still have feelings for her. Even with what he knew now he still did. “I...”

Stiles shook his head. “You do. You did. I could tell.”

Derek shook his head. “It’s... It’s not the same. It’s - I did. Maybe. It felt like it - but that was before I knew what I know now. Now, I...”

Lydia shook her head. “No,” she said, grabbing her notes. “I’ve been looking through that line. It doesn’t have to be present. I’m sure that it actually reads, _The alternative must have been beloved of the sacrifice_. As long as she’s been ‘beloved’ of you at some point, then she qualifies.”

Stiles had sat down next to Malia again and she was curling against his shoulder when no one was looking. “It fits,” he said softly, nodding and reaching for the papers they’d used to translate the tablet. Derek’s heart clenched in his chest, nodding though he wasn’t sure he could say the words out loud. He looked at Stiles, but Stiles wasn’t looking at him, just reaching for his laptop again. “Let’s find her then.”

“Okay,” Derek said. That was as much agreement as he could manage, then he just walked out of the room.

Standing in the back yard, looking up at the dark sky, crescent moon and littered stars, he tried to sort out the mess in his head. Everything was wrong. Death and pain and suffering and now there would be more death - of someone who he was so conflicted about. He hated her. She killed his family. In the worst way. Devastated his uncle so badly that it caused even more suffering. And yet - he remembered caring for her. He remembered her being the center of his world. He just wanted the death to _stop_.

Stiles didn’t say anything when he came outside a few minutes later. He didn’t do more at first other than stand by the door, watching him. Derek knew he was there, he could smell him, hear him, but Stiles was giving him space. After a few moments though he joined Derek, looking up at the sky as well. “You don’t want to do it do you?”

“Every time anyone tells me anything these days, someone dies. I just want that to stop.”

“So, you’d die to save Kate? And there’s that self-sacrificing thing,” Stiles groaned. “If there was ever anyone that wasn’t worth it…”

“It’s not my place to decide that,” Derek said shaking his head.

“Yeah? Well maybe it should be mine.” Stiles was quiet, looking at this hands. “I’ll make you do it if I have to. I need you to do it. I…” Stiles trailed off as if he wasn’t sure what to say next.

“I said okay, didn’t I?” Derek said, turning away.

“And it was entirely not convincing,” Stiles said reaching for Derek’s arm to keep him from turning too far. “But I won’t let you do that to me. Do… What you did… and take it away.”

Derek turned back, brows furrowing in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You said you’d always be there,” Stiles said, voice barely audible. 

“You told me not to make promises I couldn’t keep.” 

“That was before you marked me so you’d never forget me! You can’t leave me now!”

“I don’t want anyone else to die for me!” 

“I don’t want you to die! That’s strictly not an option. No. I don’t care about her.” 

“I don’t expect you to care about her!” Derek exclaimed.

“But you do. Enough that you’ll die for her,” Stiles retorted.

“I don’t want to die, Stiles! I don’t have some kind of death wish. I just... knowingly putting someone in the firing line, just to save myself? God, please tell me that’s not something that I’ll do.”

Stiles slumped, his lower lip wavering for a moment before he shook his head. “You wouldn’t. Maybe her. Maybe Peter, but probably not.” He sighed and turned away, wrapping his arms around himself. “I get it now. Why you didn’t want to.” 

Derek hesitated for a moment, then went to him, slipping his arms around Stiles’ waist from behind and resting his chin on his shoulder, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Stiles’ neck, right by the marks he’d left there. “I don’t want to die,” he repeated, his breath hot against Stiles’ shirt.

“Then don’t. Let bad things happen to people who deserve them.” Stiles leaned back into him, but his shoulders stayed tense. “I guess you always knew something like this could happen. One of us could get hurt terribly or die and the other would be left alone.” 

“What would you do? If it was you that was going to die?” Derek asked him. He hated the way that Stiles didn’t answer immediately; at the way he shifted his position.

“It’s not me though,” Stiles said, after a moment, and Derek knew very well that he was avoiding the subject. “What would you do - if it was me?” he asked.

Derek sighed, closing his eyes. “Hunt her down and haul her back here kicking and screaming,” he said, resigned to that fact. When it came to himself, he wasn’t sure that he could sign someone’s death warrant, just to save his own life. To save the life for someone he cared about? Well, that was different.

“Then that’s what I’m going to do now,” Stiles said, sounding just as resigned as Derek. “If you can’t do it for yourself, I’ll do it for you.”

Derek didn’t say anything, he just held Stiles tighter. He was asking them all to do something for him that he wasn’t sure he could do himself. He was expecting someone to take his place as a sacrifice and he didn’t have words to go with that.

Eventually, Stiles turned, twisting in Derek’s grip so he was facing him. Reaching up, Stiles cupped his jaw in his hand and kissed him softly. Derek whimpered, not proud of the noise, but it had been such a gentle move in a world that seemed more like a nightmare than anything else. “I have to remember you,” Derek whispered. “If I survive this - I have to remember you. And if I don’t, you have to _make_ me remember you. I can’t lose everything.”

“You’re going to survive this,” Stiles corrected, voice firm. “And you won’t lose everything. Even if you don’t remember you’ll still have me. I’ll still be here.” It wasn’t exactly what Derek was asking for, but it was something at least.

“I’ve already lost everything,” Derek told him. “You’re all I have left.”

“That’s not at all true,” Stiles said, but Derek had heard the way his heart rate jumped up when Derek had said it. “You’ve got all of us, even if you don’t like us much.” Stiles was teasing, fighting the sadness in his eyes with humor.

“You know it’s not the same as you.”

Instead of answering, Stiles kissed him again. It was still the sweet kiss from before, but there was something more behind it this time and Derek surrendered himself to it. He allowed Stiles to help him forget the reality that was his life: losing himself for a while at least in the arms and lips of this man. He wanted to just stay here, warm and protected, where he felt wanted and loved and everything was simply _right_.


	9. Chapter 9

Finding Kate had proved harder than anyone had imagined. The group had reached out to all their contacts, including Peter, whom no one actually wanted to deal with, but they didn’t want to leave any stone unturned, and after three weeks no one had had any luck. There were plenty of leads, things that might be her, scuffles, attacks, things filed with the sheriff’s department and departments in the surrounding counties, but nothing solid.

The day of reckoning was circled on a calendar printout in red. It had been tacked to Stiles’ wall with lines of string pointing in varying directions about the curse, the spell to reverse it, and their futile search for Kate. It had started small, but now it seemed to take up most of Stiles’ wall, bearing down on them, almost mocking them.

Derek had all but moved into the Stilinski house, sharing Stiles’ bed when he could get him to try and sleep. The Sheriff had figured out quickly that something was going on between them, either from the marks Derek had kept dark like promised peeking out of Stiles’ shirt or the way they’d invaded each other’s personal space. They’d had an argument about it, Stiles and his father, but it had ended with grumbling about the nightmares being gone and no one had forced Derek into the guest room. Derek had no idea what nightmares they meant, but he didn’t fight it. The last thing he wanted to be was away from Stiles.

Derek had become increasingly withdrawn as time had passed. He was incredibly aware of it, yet nobody else seemed to think it at all unusual that he mostly communicated in expression and posture these days. He was grateful not to be pressed. He didn’t know how to tell people that he would lie awake at night, Stiles asleep in his arms, listening to the sound of his own heartbeat, each beat sounding like a countdown to his last.

He worried he deserved it. That he had earned this disturbing clock that ticked off seconds as he got closer to his end. Had he been a bad person? Was that it? Maybe. Or maybe something was supposed to get him years ago when it got the rest of his family.  
Every minute that passed he wondered if he could be doing more. If he should be doing more. If his last hours shouldn’t be spent watching Stiles pace in front of his wall of questions, his string and pictures and post-it notes that seemed like a visual representation of his brain. Maybe he should be doing something else, taking Stiles out and try his hand at being a real couple before he didn’t have a chance to. Maybe searching for answers was futile and he really should be enjoying his last few days instead of spending all his energy trying to find her. He wasn’t even sure it was going to work.

“Stiles.”

“Huh?” Stiles spun, one arm crossed over his chest, the other somewhere near his mouth as he chewed on his fingers. That was how he thought, that stance, in front of the wall.

“What if we went to a movie tonight?”

“What?”

“Like a date. Dinner maybe? Then a movie? You can pick which one.”

Stiles blinked at him twice then narrowed his eyes. “What... We have... Are you asking me out?”

Derek shrugged a shoulder, “Would that be such a bad idea?”

Stiles stared at Derek, lips pressed into a thin line of confusion. “Did you forget where we’re looking for Kate? So we can save your life?” he asked, gesturing at the wall. “We’re almost out of time, we haven’t found her yet and I don’t know if a _date_ makes sense at the moment.”

“We’re running out of time.”

“Which is why we don’t have time to... go out for dinner and a movie! I’m only sleeping because you’re insisting, we can’t lose more time.”

“But what if we run out of it?” Derek asked quietly. _What if we never get a chance?_ He couldn’t bring himself to actually say it, but he knew it was clear.

Stiles stopped, swallowing hard and turning away to look at the wall again. It was something he did when he wanted to hide his emotions. He was terrible at keeping them off his face and instead, he just turned away. After a moment though he turned back, seemingly under control. “We’re not going to. We are going to figure this out, find her, fix it and then you can take me out all you want.”

Derek raised his brows, questioning both Stiles’ assertion and his fake front. In return, Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that when you know I’m right. We have two days left, Derek. Two days. I’m not spending any of that time sitting across a table having a conversation with your eyebrows because you have decided that you don’t want to use your words anymore and then sitting in the dark trying to pretend like I care about some kind of movie when what I want to be doing is finding Kate Argent and saving your life.”

“You noticed.” Stiles had noticed he’d shut down. He’d seen it. Of course he had. Derek couldn’t fight the way that meant so much to him. No one else seemed to have noticed and as much as he didn’t want to talk about it, or push it, he was glad that someone noticed.

“I spend every waking hour I’m not in class with you, so yes, of course I noticed you’d stopped talking.” Stiles sighed and shook his head. “No. That’s my answer to you asking me out. No. I’m busy washing my hair. And saving your life. Again.”

Derek looked away. “We’re not going to find her.”

“Yes. We are.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Shut up Derek. Go back to not talking and not putting all that negative energy into the universe. I am not letting you die on me.” Stiles glared at him like he meant business, then went back to the stack of recent police reports.

Derek glared at him, then stalked out of the room. He couldn’t stand there and listen to that, watch his attempts to make the most of his final moments get shoved aside. He doubted that Stiles even noticed he’d gone - a theory that was only reinforced when Derek returned an hour later to find Stiles in the same position, still reading.

“You’re taking a break,” Derek said with determination.

“Really not, Der,” Stiles replied, turning a page over and not even looking at Derek until Derek pulled Stiles’ chair away from the desk, sending papers flying as Stiles sputtered protests.

Derek moved the remaining files to one side and set two containers of Chinese food down in the space, along with a couple of pairs of chopsticks and two cokes. “You’re taking a break. And we’re having dinner. I’ll cave on the movie, but not the rest.”

Stiles looked mad as hell until what Derek said registered and his expression softened. “You really want this don’t you?” he asked sounding almost surprised. Derek nodded solemnly and Stiles sighed and gave in, reaching for one of the containers and one of the sets of chopsticks, sliding his chair closer to Derek. “Wanna know something crazy?” he asked, looking at the sweet and sour chicken in his hand and not Derek.

“Yes,” Derek said, watching Stiles as he sat on the bed with his own food.

“This was how I imagined our first date. At the loft obviously, but pretty much just Chinese food and a movie. It was all I could figure you’d agree to. You know, if I could have reached a point where I was brave enough to ask.”

“Am I really that difficult?” Derek asked.

“Honestly? Yes. And then some. Illustrated by the fact that I thought you _hated me_.”

“I definitely don’t hate you,” Derek said. “But maybe I hate how you make me feel.”

Stiles looked up from his food, question on his face without asking it.

Derek sighed. “What I’ve gone through, all of it. I can’t see myself being happy about finding another person I could lose. And you’re human. It makes you vulnerable.”

“Which makes you vulnerable,” Stiles finished. Derek scowled at him.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Yes it is.”

Derek scowled again, but he wasn’t looking at Stiles this time. He really did hate when Stiles was so damn right. “That’s not what I meant, but maybe it’s true.”

“And you hate being vulnerable.”

“Maybe something’s changed,” Derek suggested. “Maybe I can change.”

“Why? How? No.” Stiles shook his head.

Derek didn’t know what to make of that. “How close did I come to losing you, when you were possessed?”

Stiles stopped, food halfway to his face, setting the chopsticks down. “Close. Closer than anyone wanted to admit,” he said after a long pause. “People were hunting me. When I got _me_ back I tried to kill myself. I might have never come back.”

Derek finally looked at him, reaching across to ghost his fingers across Stiles’ hand. “But... you did.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, but it felt more like he was saying something just to say it.

“Maybe that’s what changed.”

Stiles didn’t look ready to agree, but after a moment he set his food aside and got up to shut the door to his room. “Where did you seeing this date ending?” He asked, moving closer and pulling at his shirt a little.

“Ending?”

“Yeah. Did you think you’d get lucky or does that have to wait for a few dates?”

“I’m not sure we have a few dates,” Derek pointed out, though there was a hint of a smile there, which suggested he knew exactly where Stiles was going with the question.

Stiles nodded, biting at his lower lip. “Kind of exactly what I was thinking.”

“Exactly,” Derek agreed, before pushing up slightly and kissing Stiles with intent.

\-----

Derek rolled over and stretched as he woke, automatically reaching for the body that should have been lying next to him. Pleasant flashes of naked skin, of moving against each other, of the noises that Stiles made had Derek smiling and wanting nothing more than to curl up with him and bask. For a while at least. Then maybe explore the possibility of round two. That was until he realised the bed was empty.

Derek sat up, looking around as he ran a hand through his hair. He exhaled with a stunning lack of surprise when he saw Stiles sitting back at his desk, hard at work, clad only in a pair of low slung jeans.

“Don’t even think about it,” Stiles muttered. “I’m not coming back to bed. Last day, Derek. I am _not_ losing you. Especially not now.”

Derek was torn between fighting that, dragging Stiles back into bed and _enjoying_ their last hours together instead of searching for something futile. It wasn’t that he wanted to die, he didn’t, but he was resigned to the fact that he probably would. Watching Stiles stress himself out over it was unappealing in comparison to the Stiles he’d had the night before, but he didn’t want to push it. Stiles sounded determined and Derek would be lying if he tried to say that Stiles’ comment didn’t make him feel warm all over. He reached for a spare pair of boxers on the floor next to the bed, not caring who’s they were, pulling them on then joining Stiles, leaning over the desk. “Anything new?”

“They got a hit on the APB my dad put out on her car last night. Found it a county over, but nothing.” Stiles clicked on an email with a picture of a car that looked like it had been run off the road and hit a few trees on the way.

“Damn.”

“Yeah. They found blood, but no Kate.” Stiles sighed and leaned back, running his fingers through his hair.

Derek went cold, abruptly facing the possibility that Kate was already dead. He had thought that he had been resigned to his death before, but now he realized that he had been clinging to that faint hope that they would find something at the last minute like some typical Hollywood movie.

This wasn’t a movie though was it? It was real life. And he was screwed. It made his blood run cold and the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

Stiles was there though, wrapping his arms around Derek’s arm. “We’re gonna find her. Or someone else. Seriously. I will fix this. Fix you.”

Derek looked down at Stiles for a moment, taking in how serious the other guy was right now. That stubbornly determined look in his eye, the tinge of desperation scenting the air. “Promise me something,” Derek said, his eyes narrowing. “No matter what. No matter how this goes down. You won’t do something stupid.”

“That… doesn’t sound like me at all,” Stiles quipped, only Derek wasn’t joking.

“I mean it, Stiles. No… Just… Don’t, say, go out and do something that would qualify you to become one of Tezcatlipoca’s own.”

Stiles looked guilty for a moment then nodded. “Fine. I won’t,” he said, though he didn’t sound completely convinced.

“It would be pointless if you did. I couldn’t go on with that...like that..without you.”

“You’re getting sappy on me,” Stiles said but didn’t complain as Derek pressed his nose into his hair and his tone lacked any real bite.

“Yeah, I am,” Derek agreed, trailing his hands down Stiles’ sides. He lifted his head just enough to look down between their bodies, circling the tips of his fingers around the extra marks he’d made on Stiles last night. A pretty pattern all over his torso that Derek knew carried down out of sight beneath his jeans. There could be no question now, if he survived this and didn’t remember, just how much he was with Stiles.

Stiles shivered under the attention, leaning into it for a long moment before shaking his head and untangling himself from Derek. “Then let me work,” he said plainly, staying close, but turning his attention back to his computer. Derek sighed and went back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and reaching for the stack of papers they’d read a million times. He’d only made it through a few pages when Stiles’ phone beeped, something he only half looked at while still scrolling through pages on his laptop. It was the phone clattering against the desk that caught Derek’s attention. “What?”

“He found her.”

“Who?”

“Peter...”


	10. Chapter 10

“What did you say?” Derek asked, certain he was hearing things. “Because I thought you just said that Peter. My uncle Peter. The guy who killed my sister. Has found Kate.”

Stiles was already up and gathering his things. “Yes. That one. He has her at the loft. Put some clothes on.” He went to the wall, pulling down the pieces to the spell he’d tacked up there, stacking them together. Turning back he frowned at Derek. “Those are my boxers,” he said, then shook his head. “Whatever. Clothes. Come on. Here,” he dug around the laundry on the floor and picked up the shirt Derek been wearing when they found him. When Derek didn’t take it immediately, he added. “You can’t wear my shirt. When we get you back to you it won’t fit. Go figure.”

Reluctantly, Derek pulled the shirt on, pushing away the regret that came with being back in his ‘own’ clothes. There wasn’t time for that right now. He located his own jeans as well and pulled them on, cinching the belt tight at the waist to keep them up. “Let’s go,” he said, already heading toward the door. It felt like a dream - five minutes ago, he was sure he was dead. Now he didn’t know what to think.

Before Derek could open the door though, Stiles had his hand in his shirt pulling him back. He had a shirt on now as well and his backpack over one arm. “Told you that I’d fix it. I’m going to,” he promised and Derek had to wonder who he was making the promise to: Derek or himself. The question was pushed out of his mind, however, as Stiles pulled him in further and kissed him, hard and intently. Derek hardly had the time to return the kiss before the other guy let him go. “Now we can leave,” Stiles said, a little breathlessly.

Derek almost laughed, but held back, too breathless himself to manage the sound. He settled for a nod, holding on to Stiles’ hand as he led the way out.

Stiles was a flurry of action in the car while driving, calling Lydia to get her to the loft, ordering Derek to get the list of ingredients out of his bag, reminding Scott to bring the mirror with him when he came. “Deaton already said he had all this stuff,” Stiles said, nodding to the list in Derek’s hand. “So we’ll get him to pack it up and shove him in the Jeep and take him over there.” Stiles all but skidded the Jeep into the parking lot for the clinic then bounded out of his side list in hand.

The clinic was thankfully quiet, minus the normal chatter of pets that Derek could hear in the distance. The druid appeared before they got any further than the front door, giving them that curious look like he seemed to, eyes lingering on Derek longer than probably necessary. Derek guessed it was still weird to see the younger version of himself. “Did you find what you were looking for Stiles?” Deaton asked. Derek caught the way he didn’t say who. He wondered if that was on purpose.

“Yes. Well, Peter did, but yes. Here’s the ingredients for the spell and we’re down to the last hours so whenever you’re ready, we can go. But be ready soon. Like nowish,” Stiles rambled as he handed over the list.

Deaton studied the list for a moment then nodded. “I’ve already prepared most of what you’ll need,” Deaton said, waving them through, Stiles opening the low door for Derek, knowing about the mountain ash in the wood would keep the the wolf out unless he broke the circle. “But I can’t do the spell for you.”

“Wait...what?” Stiles abandoned the door, following after Deaton leaving Derek stuck outside of it. “You can...why can’t you? You’re the guy Deaton.”

Deaton gave Stiles a look then pointed back at Derek to remind him to go get his abandoned friend. “I can’t because you have to be human. Entirely human. Which I’m not as much.”

Stiles pushed the door open and reached for Derek to pull him into the room. “You’re joking. Who then? I mean… I can’t…” Deaton gave Stiles a little bit of a smile and nodded. “Me? Really?”

“Of course Stiles. You can do it.”

“But - you really want to rely on me for this? What if I screw it up?” Stiles asked, panic starting to sound in his tone.

“You won’t,” Deaton replied, his voice firm and calm as he opened a cupboard and pulled out a squarish, lacquered wood box with a carry handle. “I’ll be with you all the way. I can direct you, but it _has_ to be you, Stiles. Unless you want to involve your father, which…”

“No,” Stiles said, quickly, just as Derek knew that he would do. He had seen some of the relationship between the Stilinskis. One didn’t need to see much to know that Stiles would literally die for his father if it ever came to it. He certainly wouldn’t involve the Sheriff in something of this nature. Not when it would compromise his job and position. The fact that they’d have to waste time explaining _why_ came a very far second in reasoning.

Stiles took the box, though it was impossible to miss the way his hands shook as he clutched it. Derek let his hand fall on Stiles’ lower back, trying to be reassuring. “You can do this.” 

“You’d better hope so,” Stiles quipped, but his tone lacked the bite it might normally have. He looked at the box, then Deaton. 

“I don’t need hope right now,” Derek said, with all the confidence his voice could muster right now. It was a good lie. Neither of them really knew if Stiles could do this, but Stiles needed his backing and he would get it. Derek would have faith for both of them and hopefully that would be enough.

“Are we going then?” Deaton asked, with an impatient little hum in his voice.

“Huh?” Stiles turned away from where he’d been looking at Derek and nodded. “Yes. Now. Come on.” He turned and led the way back to his jeep. 

Derek sat in the back this time, listening to Deaton and Sitles go over the spell on the way to the loft, trying to focus on what they were saying and ignore the twist of his stomach. It was all down to this single moment and when they pulled up to the building his loft was in, Derek wasn’t sure he was ready to face what was waiting. Kate, whom he’d loved, but had killed his family. Peter, who’d killed his sister. His own possible death just waiting for him. Stiles and Deaton were already out of the jeep and heading into the building when Stiles realized Derek wasn’t with them, looking back, saying something to him, only to find him not there. Stiles held up a finger for Deaton to wait, then jogged back to where Derek was lingering by the car, not able to move his feet. 

“Kinda can’t do this without you Der,” he said gently as he could even with the urgency in his voice. 

“I know,” Derek said, but he still couldn’t get his feet to move. He looked up at the warehouse and swallowed. He was certain that last time he had been here, it hadn’t loomed in such a menacing way. A black shadow of a building, even in the predawn light, right now it felt like a tomb. 

“Derek,” Stiles called, the urgency in his tone dragging Derek’s gaze away from the building to Stiles’ face. There must have been something in Derek’s expression, because Stiles came back for him, taking him by the elbow and propelling him toward the entrance.

It was enough at least to get Derek moving, even if he lingered behind Stiles and Deaton as they got to the loft, sticking close to the door as he looked at her. He could smell her the moment he’d walked into the room. She smelled different, but oddly the same. Soft floral perfume covering up something more animalistic. He swallowed hard, not wanting to meet her eyes, but he did, her looking up at him eyes wide and innocent looking. He’d seen that face before. It was the one she’d used when she first seduced him. She’d felt guilty, that was what she told him. He was young, but he’d told her he didn’t care and he’d let her pull him down into it. 

“Derek,” she said, struggling in her bonds. They’d chain her up with heavy, solid-looking chains. He reminded himself that she was a were now, and far stronger than she looked. “Derek - please. Help me!” her tone was pitiful, appealing to the naive boy in him. His expression didn’t change as he looked down at her, unmoved by her pleas. “They’ve been lying to you. All of it - lies,” she tried. He saw her expression change as she realised that she wasn’t getting through to him. Witnessed the moment she gave up trying. Her eyes turned hard and calculating and the edges of her lips turned up in a cold smile. “I had to try, didn’t I, lover? But they got to you good. Told you about how I fucked you, made you scream with pleasure, left you begging for more. How you willingly left your house open for me so I could be waiting for you in your bed. I bet you got real hot to the thought of that, didn’t you Derek? Not as hot as the rest of your family. I bet they screamed as their skin melted from their bones. Do you know the agony of fire, Derek? It’s one of the worst ways to die. It’s-”

Kate’s words were cut off as Peter backhanded her across the face, his eyes flashing blue and his claws catching, leaving four parallel streaks of red across her cheeks and narrowly missing taking out an eye.

Derek tasted bile, his own vision going red until cool fingers wrapped around his wrist. Stiles. Stiles unafraid, pulling him back towards the middle of the room where the mirror was propped up. Stiles who smelled like his room, like them, and was enough for the anger and panic to subside. “Let’s do this,” he told the other man, which had Stiles nodding. 

“Stand here,” he said, pulling Derek into position before the obsidian mirror. Derek stared at the reflection, still kind of freaked out by the older version of him staring back at him. He turned away to see Stiles gesture for Peter to bring Kate over.

Peter pulled Kate to her feet by her arm. Blood was trickling down her face, but the wounds were already beginning to heal as Kate licked her tongue around her mouth, gathering up enough of her own blood to spit into Peter’s face. “Screw you,” she snarled at him.

Peter didn’t even blink. Acting as though the blood wasn’t there, he simply said, “That’s more my nephew’s style. I wouldn’t stoop of low as trash like you.” His tone was easy, conversation, as though he were stating mere fact as he hauled her across the room with enough power that Derek wondered if he would rip Kate’s arm out of her socket. Wrestling Kate into position, Peter stood behind her, holding her into position, his claws out and curling into the flesh of her shoulders. “Stay, kitty. Stay.”

Kate growled, but looked away, turning her attention to Derek. She doubtlessly saw him as an easier target, and he looked away, quickly, before she could say anything.

Stiles had been across the room, conferring with Deaton. Derek watched as Deaton poured something into a wide stone bowl and handed it to Stiles, along with a ceremonial knife. Stiles’ face was serious as he walked towards Derek and Kate and as he drew near, the scent of the herbs that had been mixed in the bowl was so potent that it was almost overpowering.

Stiles set the bowl beneath the mirror. “Okay so to do this I have to,” Stiles looked at Deaton who nodded then looked at Derek and motioned towards his arm with the blade. “I need your blood and her blood.” 

Derek nodded holding out his arm to Stiles, inside of his forearm exposed. As Stiles hesitated he sighed softly. “I’ll heal.” 

“I know,” Stiles replied, grimacing as he lay the edge of the knife to the skin of Derek’s inner arm. “But it’s still blood, dude. I don’t do well with blood.”

Kate laughed, harshly. “Oh, that’s just fabulous. The only piece of crap you could find to carry out an Aztec spell and he doesn’t like _blood_. Derek, my love - you’re going to fucking _die_ and I? These chains won’t hold me for an instant after your heart explodes and I am going to _love_ tearing each and every one of you limb from bloody limb. Then, after you’re all dead? I’m going to go after your _families_ and they will suffer. I’ll draw it out. It’ll take them-”

Derek winced as Stiles’s grip tightened and he cut deeply into his arm - more deeply than they had agreed was needed, but Derek could sense the anger in him. He watched his blood drip into the bowl, frowning as it mixed with the herbs and Stiles murmured whatever ancient words he was supposed to through gritted teeth. The concoction in the bowl simmered somehow, the spell starting.

He pulled the bowl away from Derek and turned on Kate, swallowing hard against the blood as he cut her arm as well from where Peter held her, repeating the same words again. Kate made a gagging noise as Stiles worked though. “This moron reeks of you,” she snarled at Derek. “Is that why you picked him? Because you’re screwing him too?” 

Derek stared forward into the mirror, seeing the hatred reflected back from his older self’s expression, the anger flashing in his eyes as Kate continued to spout vile things about Stiles until it was Peter who snarled and broke, growling, “If you do not shut that mouth of yours I will take great pleasure and satisfaction in tearing out your tongue.”

Derek tried to look at Stiles, but the other man was focused, eyes on the bowl now full of blood and the mirror in front of them. Deaton held out the paper with the spell on it for Stiles to read. Just as he started though, fingers in the bowl of blood, Derek’s heart clenched painfully. He gasped, grabbing at his chest with one hand, Stiles with the other. Distantly he heard Kate cackle and he knew what it was. It was starting. 

Stiles kept chanting, his face locked in determination. Derek cried out in pain, throwing his head back, his breaths coming in short, sharp pants. Derek couldn’t get enough air into his lungs as Stiles smeared his fingers across the mirror, shoulders and hands shaking at the noises Derek was making. Once he tried to turn, but Deaton called him back, focusing on what he was doing. With a final chant Stiles finished the spell, lighting a match and dropping it into the bowl.

The match flare and burned for a moment before the pain dissipated and Derek sagged to the floor, feeling boneless and exhausted, dripping with sweat. Every limb burned with pain as he tried to curl himself up into a ball. 

That was when Kate started screaming - yelling until she couldn't. Peter had let go of her and she was clutching her chest, sinking to her knees. Derek knew what it was. He knew what she was feeling. He'd been feeling it moments before.

Everyone else was standing around, staring at her, but Derek knew how she felt. He hated her. She killed his family, she destroyed his entire life, but nobody deserved to go out like this. Pushing himself across the floor, he gathered her up into his arms, cradling her like a damn baby and stroking her hair back from her face. She looked up at him, her face contorted in agony yet he could still see the utter hatred in her eyes.

Before he even realized he was doing it, he was taking her pain. She was dying, that was obvious, but he was still taking her pain. He couldn’t not. He didn't care that she hated him. He held her and he watched the light fade from those eyes that he had once upon a time thought that he loved, never noticing that the angle was changing, that she was getting further away and that his arms as he held her were growing more muscular. Derek missed what everyone else saw - as Kate died, Derek became himself again.

As Kate breathed her last, Derek looked up, meeting the shocked eyes of each person in the room. He frowned, confused.

It was Malia who spoke. “Where’s Stiles?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter guys - and just a warning that there's a change of POV to Stiles. Hope it works out okay and also that you've enjoyed reading this as much as we've enjoyed writing this!

It was childish and far from his his best moment, but Stiles knew he couldn’t be there. He couldn’t stay, couldn’t face it, and the moment he saw Derek start to shift back, saw the light drain from Kate’s eyes, he bailed. No one had noticed. They hadn’t been looking at him. They’d been looking at the way that Derek had gathered Kate up in his arms as she died, doing more for her than she deserved, because he was Derek. It gave Stiles the perfect out and he’d taken it. He had quietly let himself out of the loft, traces of their blood still on his hands. The spell had worked and Derek was alive. That was all that could matter right now. The fact that Stiles still felt that emptiness of loss was nothing. Derek was alive and Stiles wasn’t allowed to be selfish about that. At least, not where anyone could see him. He would go home and grieve in private, then things could go back to the way they’d been. The marks the younger Derek had left on him would fade and Stiles would never have to face the reality of a real and unavoidable rejection from Derek’s normal self. It was best that way for everyone.

Once in the jeep, though, he’d wandered. Driving through familiar streets, trying to force away memories of what the younger Derek had said and what Stiles had felt. Derek had said he felt right and Stiles had felt like he belonged. He’d tried to be cynical and distanced about the whole thing, but he’d failed miserably. He should have known from the start he never would have been able to pull that off, but he’d tried anyway. He’d wanted the attention too much. No, he’d wanted _Derek’s_ attention too much and he had given in to temptation.

Stiles slammed on the breaks and jerked the jeep over to the side of the road, scrubbing at his eyes in the darkness. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t live with this Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, just waiting to find out that Derek had forgotten everything and having to go back to pretending like there was nothing between them. Stiles knew that’s what would happen. Time after time life had shown that good things didn’t happen. Not to Stiles and _especially_ not to Derek. Derek had had the shittiest life of anyone Stiles had ever known. To expect that something great could happen for both of them? Stiles wasn’t holding his breath. In fact, right now, it was coming out in hitches and sobs as the stresses of the last few weeks finally caught up with him. He crawled into the back seat of the jeep and curled up into a ball. Dragging an old blanket over himself, he let the tears fall.

When they finally stopped he was stiff and exhausted and had a headache from crying. It was irrationally really, he’d had a point when he was there, crying, thinking maybe Derek would find him, track him down and make things better. _Good things don’t happen Stiles_. He needed to remember that. He needed to repeat it over and over again in his mind which was what he did as he got the jeep going again and drove himself home. The police cruiser wasn’t in the drive, which was a godsend, because Stiles wasn’t ready to deal with his father just yet. Not tear-stained and with blood on his fingers.

Stiles’ hands were shaking still as he let himself into the house and headed up to his bedroom. He he walked slowly, foregoing the way he would usually hare around the place, and take the stairs two at a time. He didn’t have the energy for that today. He shut his bedroom door behind him and pulled off his shirt, before flopping face first down on the bed with a groan.

“You really should look where you’re going. Anyone could have been waiting.”

Stiles jerked up at the voice, one that was all too familiar, but since it had been gone for weeks it was jarring. He jerked up and frowned, staring at the looming figure lurking in the corner of his room. “People don’t usually sneak in,” he said sitting up and wishing he hadn’t taken his shirt off. There was no good way to hide the marks the younger version of Derek had left without it.

“I do,” Derek pointed out - something that Stiles couldn’t actually deny. There had been days that he had wondered whether Derek actually knew how to use the front door. This Derek, anyway.

“Why are you here?” Stiles demanded, falling back on aggression as a defensive mode.

“You disappeared, after everything,” Derek said, keeping his tone even.

“So?”

“So. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Stiles stared him down. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice cold. “I’m fine - so you can leave now. No need to check up on me.” Stiles held himself firm, refusing to let himself react to the way that Derek seemed to wilt, to the way that his brows furrowed and his head tilted in an expression of puppy-like confusion. It wasn’t as adorably cute as it had been on the younger version of the man, but it still tore at Stiles’ heart. Not that it mattered, since Stiles had already torn his own heart to pieces, convincing himself that it was all over. “Just go Der, Derek. Go.” Stiles waved at the door then turned away grabbing his shirt again.

He didn’t get the shirt all the way back on before Derek was there, touching his back. Stiles knew what was there. He’d laughed when Derek left that mark, trying to squirm away, but Derek had had held him in place. “It worked. You fixed it.”

“I can tell. You’re you again. And she’s dead. Go me.” Stiles moved out of Derek’s touch and pulled his shirt on again.

“Then why are you so angry?” Derek called after him.

Stiles stopped in his tracks, breathing as heavily as if he’d just run a marathon. He didn’t want to have to say it outloud. He didn’t want to bring it into the world and have it all confirmed. He just wanted to be left alone with his grief at the fact that everything was back to normal. “Don’t you remember? I hate you,” he said, his voice cracking slightly on the last two words.

“I don’t remember you hating me,” Derek said, and it was enough for Stiles’ insides to clench. Damn hope. “I mean, if you hated me you wouldn’t have helped right?”

“Is that all you remember?” Stiles asked and instantly wished he hadn’t.

“No,” Derek said and it was enough for Stiles to turn and look at him. He wished he hadn’t. It was close to that same look, that puppy dog face that Stiles hated and loved so much.

Stiles swallowed past the lump in his throat. “What else - what else do you remember?” he asked, having to force the words out.

“Everything you were afraid I would forget,” Derek answered, simply.

Stiles felt like he’d been suckerpunched. He had been so sure that Derek would simply forget it all and now to find out that he hadn’t - it was if the floor had given way beneath him. “And…?” he asked.

“And…” Derek started, moving closer again to pull at the neckline of Stiles’ shirt to reveal the purpling bruises on his collarbone. “I think it made me happy,” he said softly.

“Happy?” Stiles asked with a hitched laugh, half a cry. “That’s not something you generally associate with Derek Hale.”

“Would you rather it didn’t make me happy? That I...hated you? Isn’t that what you said?” Derek asked, fingers still gently touching Stiles skin.

“It makes things easier, going back to you hating me. It’s like the rightful order of things,” Stiles said, trying to keep his breath from hitching in his throat.

“Remember when we talked,” Derek said instead. “And I said you felt right?” Stiles nodded, knees going a little weak. Derek remembered details, not just the general aspect of things. “I meant that. Even now, remembering everything, you’ve always felt right.”

“But it doesn’t make a difference. You don’t want me anyway, because I make you feel like Kate. I make you feel like you’re taking advantage of some kid,” Stiles said, spitting out the final word.

Derek winced at the tone, but shook his head. “You’re not really some kid are you?” he asked, pulling his hand away and looking up at Stiles. “I do feel like her sometimes, but I’m not her. I don’t want anything from you.”

Stiles bit his bottom lip, pulling it in between his teeth. “Nothing at all?” he asked, really hoping that wasn’t actually true.

Derek smiled, reaching for Stiles, thumb against his chin to try and pull his lip loose. “Something, but nothing that I’d manipulate you for like she did. I just want you.”

“Okay - I’m dreaming. I… fell asleep in the car and this is just some kind of crazy dream. Or, no! I fell asleep at the _wheel_ , went careening off the road, hit a tree or went off a cliff or something and now I’m, like, in a coma, or dead or something. No way this is actually my life.”

“You’re not dead, Stiles,” Derek said, his lips curving up into a smile. He lifted his hand, spreading his fingers. “How many fingers?” he asked.

“Five,” Stiles said, actually stopping to count them.

“Five,” Derek agreed. “You’re not dreaming.” He hooked his fingers in Stiles’ shirt, pulling him closer.

Stiles stumbled forward, blushing a little. “Not dreaming. And you want me.”

Derek let out a hum of agreement, then leaned in more, forehead close to Stiles’ as he cupped his cheek. “Why did you run, Stiles?” Derek asked him, his breath close enough now that Stiles could feel it on his cheek.

“I thought you’d forget,” Stiles admitted.

“I promised you I wouldn’t. And I spent all that time, making sure that you were _covered_ in proof in case I did,” Derek said, tracing a finger down Stiles’ body, connecting mark to mark in a way that made Stiles shiver, his pupils darkening. “Were you just going to leave it? Were you just going to let me go? If I hadn’t remembered, would you ever have _made_ me admit it? How I felt about you? How I’ve always felt about you?”

Stiles shook his head slowly, hating the thought he’d had even though he didn’t have to go through with it. “I wasn’t going to say a word. I couldn’t… you didn’t. I knew you didn’t. And if I had you would have just said no. Proof or not.” It was what he’d thought of when Derek asked him to make him remember, that he couldn’t do that. There was no way he could.

Derek took a breath and Stiles wondered if he was going to be mad, or at least disappointed to hear the truth. Instead, Derek said, “I thought that’d be what happened. Which is why I told Lydia. And Scott. And Peter. Told them that if I forgot, then they had to make me understand. I knew… God, Stiles, I love you but you’re almost as good as I am for getting in your own damn way.”

“You… You what?” Stiles was trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Derek had told the others, told them to remind him, but the last part ruined it all for him. It sent his world spiralling in such a different direction than it had been that he was sure he hadn’t heard it right.

Derek smirked ever so slightly and leaned in closer. “I told them to make me remember,” he said, but the look in his eyes said he knew that wasn’t what Stiles was asking about. Stiles shoved at his chest.

“Not that part.”

Derek held his hand up again. “Five fingers, Stiles. You heard me,” he said, a smile rippling over his face and Stiles knew that the jerk was enjoying this. The stupid, adorable, gorgeous jerk.

Stiles made a face then pulled Derek closer. “I hate you,” he said.

Derek shook his head. “No you don’t.” He pressed his nose against Stiles’ cheek and Stiles shivered.

“No,” he agreed, breaking into a giddy smile. “I don’t. I really, really don’t.” He drew back, wanting to see Derek’s face. Taking in the solid jaw line, the soft, dark beard, the sharpness of his cheekbones. He could see the younger Derek in there, somewhere, lurking in those beautiful eyes, but he was so glad to have his Derek back. “I love you,” he said, before kissing him.

There was no hesitation in the way Derek kissed him back, not like Stiles had thought there might be. It was different than kissing the younger version, but still Derek and this Derek was more than eager to kiss him hard with a confidence that younger Derek didn’t have. His hands were on Stiles’ hips, holding him in place even as the kiss tapered off. “I’m not leaving,” Derek murmured. “Never again.”

“I’m not sure my dad’ll be too impressed if you announce you’re moving in,” Stiles joked, heady on the moment.

“Yeah, he wasn’t exactly amused when I did and had been through a trauma.” Derek shook his head. “I’ll be at the loft though. Whenever you need me. I couldn’t leave you now.”

“Don’t leave me yet,” Stiles asked, hooking his arms around Derek’s neck. “Dad’s working until tonight. He won’t be home for hours.”

Derek all but chuckled and leaned into Stiles’ arms. “What makes you think I was going to leave you now? I’m not done with you.”

“Oh good - I was kinda hoping for a repeat performance of last night,” Stiles told him.

“No comparisons,” Derek warned, though it was with a playful smile, one that Stiles thought he could really get used to seeing.

“Why not?” Stiles teased, pulling Derek towards the bed. “Or are you worried you can’t keep up because you’re old now?”

“Oh, trust me. I can keep up. I am so much better than I was back then - that fumbling teenager who’d never been with a guy before,” Derek said, dryly.

“I liked that fumbling teenager,” Stiles said. “And just because you’ve been with me now, it doesn’t count as experience. That was once.”

Derek kissed him before answering. “Stiles, I’m older now. I have all those memories back. Memories that include guys before you.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to compare,” Stiles said as he was kissed again. “Maybe you should stop telling me about how much better you are now.”

“Maybe I should just show you?” Derek suggested.

“Anything to keep you from talking about all the guys you had before me.” Stiles didn’t like that, but tried not to focus on it. “Wait...do I still count as your first guy?”

“They’re nothing compared to you,” Derek said in a way that had Stiles actually believing him, though it was with a roll of his eyes because Stiles knew when Derek was turning on the charm.

“Do I count as your first?” Stiles repeated.

“I don’t know,” Derek answered, burrowing his fingers in Stiles’ hair and kissing him deeply. After a moment, Derek pulled back. “Can we just settle on you being my last?”

Stiles melted, moving closer to Derek and nodding. It was a line if there ever was one, but he let himself get caught up in it. “I think that’s fair,” he murmured because he really wanted to be Derek’s last and he was going to strictly ignore how cheesy that was. 

\-----

“What are you thinking about?” Stiles asked the question as they were lying in bed, both knowing they would have to get up and dressed sometime soon before the Sheriff got home. Stiles had been drifting on a happy cloud of contentment for a while, lying half sprawled over Derek’s chest. Now he looked up at the silent man, taking in the unfamiliar expression on his face and the way he had been staring at the ceiling, as if maybe it held all the answers until Stiles asked his question. Derek ticked his green eyes down to meet Stiles’.

“Everything feels like it’s going to be okay,” he said, quietly, as if that were the weirdest thing in the world.

“Well, now that you’ve said it that’s definitely not going to be the case,” Stiles teased, but he did his best to keep his voice quiet, matching Derek’s tone. “Why do you think though? Nothing’s really changed.” Yes, Kate was gone, but they’d thought that before.

“I know - I mean… I _know_ that,” Derek said, frowning in a way that Stiles knew meant he was trying to figure things out. “Things… should just be back to the way they were. But I… feel different.”

Stiles sat up a little, resting up on his elbows as the sheet slipped down to his hips. “Different how?”

Derek frowned again, quiet while he obviously worked his way through his answer. After a moment he reached out for Stiles, running his fingers down the younger man’s back. “Different like I don’t feel as pressured about things. Like I can breathe again.”

Now it was Stiles’ turn to feel confused. “We pressured you about things?” he asked. “Did _I_ pressure you about things?”

“Not you. I don’t mean Beacon Hills at all.” Derek paused then clearly changed his mind. When it became clear that Derek wasn’t going to volunteer anything, Stiles prodded him, giving him a significant look, that he needed to start talking. “For the past eight years, I’ve known I killed my family,” he said in a small voice that had Stiles just dropping onto him and holding him tightly.

“You didn’t,” Stiles told him, firmly.

“I know,” Derek replied, his voice full of wonder. “That’s the thing - _I know_. I didn’t kill my family. Their deaths are _not my fault_.”

Stiles sat up again, looking at Derek closely. “You just not realized it or do you actually believe it?” Derek had to have known, everyone had told him so, that he wasn’t to blame even if he had left the door open for Kate, it wasn’t his fault, it was on her. But Derek sounded different, like he actually felt that way, free of the guilt.

Derek looked at him, wide eyed, a smile actually gracing his lips without him trying to hide it. “I actually believe it. No - more than that. I _know it_.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at that then sat up and headed for his desk.

“Where are you going?” Derek asked, and Stiles had to dance out of the way as the other man sat up and reached for him, trying to pull him back into bed.

“Something’s different.”

“Obviously. I just told you that. Come back to bed.”

“No. Really different. I’m good, but sleeping with me did not make _that_ whole issue go away. You were holding on to that for dear life.”

“Come back to bed, Stiles,” Derek said, in an encouraging voice that had Stiles determinedly not looking round. He could picture it in his mind’s eye and that was bad enough. A naked Derek hale, sprawled over his bed, begging him to come back and resume what they’d had before. Stiles wasn’t strong enough to look round - especially not when he was sure he was on to something and…

“Ha!” Stiles crowed. “Got it! Wow, actually - okay… You know, we probably should have seen that one coming,” he said, ending that sentence more surprised and impressed than he’d started it. He stared at the computer screen until he felt Derek’s arms curl around him, and naked skin press to his back as Derek looked over his shoulder.

“Seen what coming?” Derek asked, stroking his fingers along Stiles’ collarbone.

“Tlazolteotl. The goddess of purification.”

“So?” Derek asked, leaning down to kiss at Stiles’ neck in a way that was unfairly distracting.

“So… Okay, apparently Tlazolteotl has something of a speciality when it comes to purification,” Stiles said, batting Derek’s hands away as they quested south, trying to distract him back to bed again. “Derek, seriously - this is important!”

“Sure - later,” Derek murmured.

“No - now. Tlazolteotl. Look, Der - please.” Stiles tried to sound firm and must have succeeded as Derek sat back on his haunches and pouted up at him. Stiles rolled his eyes at the attempt to be ‘good’ and continued, “She specialises in certain times of misdeeds. She forgives them. Specifically, _sexual_ misdeeds. Like - you blaming yourself for your family’s murders because you slept with Kate.”

Apparently that was enough to get the older man’s attention, because he reached for the laptop, taking it it from Stiles so he could read it, sitting back on the bed. “So, because I switched places with her I got to live _and_ was forgiven for my misdeeds in choosing her?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

Stiles shrugged then crawled back onto the bed, hooking his chin over Derek’s shoulder to read the passage again. “Yeah. I mean...well yeah. Tlazolteotl sort of had a thing for the hookers and whatever. And getting back what was lost. In your case, you got a clean slate. Or a clean conscience.” Derek fell quiet for long enough that Stiles frowned. “Hey,” he said. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t deserve that.”

Stiles leaned back to look at Derek. “Since when?”

“Since always. I don’t deserve a clean slate or...” He hesitated then waved between them. “This. Any of it. It’s not fair.”

Stiles looked up at him, reaching for his hips. “We both know ‘fair’ doesn’t come into it. Life is life - we just get to live it. Not choose it. And if that means you don’t have to go through the rest of your life convinced you killed your family? Then that is _great_. I’m all for that. I want that. I’m totally on the side of whatever weird-ass sacrifice-loving goddess that decided to give you that.”

Derek managed to set the laptop aside before giving in to Stiles’ touch and moving closer. “I still don’t deserve it, no matter how good it is. This is me we’re talking about. Good things don’t happen to me.”

“All the more reason. You’re the one that does deserve it. Can’t you see that? You’ve suffered long enough. You’re free. You’re here. You’ve got me.” Stiles trailed a little with the last part, losing the confidence he’d had at the beginning of the speech. Derek loved him, he knew that, but he wasn’t sure he was much of a consolation prize.

Derek kissing him in that moment almost came as a surprise - especially given the intensity with which he was suddenly being held. Hauled up out of his chair with such power that he actually ended up wrapping his legs around Derek’s waist without even thinking about it, burying his hands in the werewolf’s hair and letting out a moan as Derek moved from his lips to attack his neck with blunt teeth. “I so have you,” Derek said, against his skin. “That’s what makes the rest hard to take. It’s like life just gave me everything.”

“I think you just have really low expectations,” Stiles teased, but he knew his voice was shaking. “A scrawny teenager and the ability to sleep at night. That’s not a lot to ask for as far as everything goes.”

“Shut. Up,” Derek growled, his voice low in his throat and accompanied by an animalistic noise that went straight to Stiles’ core, his breath catching. Clearly, Derek remembered everything, even the little things he’d told him about what turned him on. Or maybe it was just that everything Derek did turned him on. Especially, he decided, the way that Derek threw him back onto the bed. Stiles landed, hard, his eyes fixed on the older man towering above him. “You’re not scrawny,” Derek said, his tone full of certainty. “Nothing about you is scrawny, but even if it was, yes. A scrawny teenager and the ability to sleep at night would be everything I ever wanted.”

Stiles swallowed his moan at the words alone then reached for Derek’s hip, pulling him down. “Then you’ve got it. Everything.” He wanted to say more, something incredibly witty but he couldn’t. All he wanted was to be under Derek and his. Again and again. He might have made the breakthrough with the younger version of Derek, but it was this version, all man and chest and arms, that he’d fallen for. This was the one who had him with a word or a glance. “Just be happy. That’s what I want.”

“That’s all I want too,” Derek said, as he gathered Stiles up into his arms. “That’s all I want for both of us.”


End file.
